The Hollow Men
by Isabel5
Summary: Chloe/Dean - When Castiel goes in search of God, he finds Chloe instead.  What does she have to do with Lucifer and the end of the world?  Can she handle the destiny that is thrust upon her?  More importantly can she handle Dean Winchester?
1. The End

**Title**: The Hollow Men  
**Fandom**: Smallville/Supernatural Crossover  
**Pairing**: Chloe/Dean  
**Rating**: MA  
**Spoilers**: In Supernatural up to the end of Season 4 with bits and pieces of the beginning of Season 5. In Smallville up to the end of Season 8 with bits and pieces of Season 9.  
**Summary:** When Castiel goes in search of God, he finds Chloe instead. What does she have to do with Lucifer and the end of the world? Can she handle the destiny that is thrust upon her? More importantly can she handle Dean Winchester?  
**Warning: **Major Character Deaths.  
**Disclaimer:** Don't own. Really want.  
**Authors Note**: This story is completely finished. There are 21 Chapters in total and I will be updating on a (hopefully) regular schedule of once a week (every Monday). This story wouldn't be anything near what it is today is if wasn't for the hard work and dedication of a few people. iluvquat - who graciously agreed to be my beta and patiently pointed out my many many mistakes while continually pushing me to make the story better, and also contributed a few scenes of her own. lynzie914 - who cheered me on and managed to keep me from sounding like an idiot on more than one occasions. And finally tehzo - who is so incredibly talented that it blows my mind on a daily basis. She provided all the chapter headers for this story (you can see them at my journal) as well as my journal header and icon. If you're not familiar with her work you should go to her site right now because it's totally worth it.

**The End**

_In the End_

_The Love You Take_

_Is Equal to_

_The Love You Make_

_-The Beatles_

**May 2, 2012**

The world is going to end today.

This is not a hyperbole.

This is not the wishful thinking of a despondent teenager.

This is not the desperate threat of a raving mad man.

This is simply a statement of fact.

For five years it has been my duty to chronicle the events of the end of the world and I have done my duty. I have written down everything. Everything they wanted me to write. Everything except for this.

For longer than five years I have known how this journey will end. I dreamed it as a child, before I knew how much dreams could really mean. As I got older somewhere in the back my mind, I came to realize it was more than just a dream but I didn't want to admit it out loud. Even after I knew what I was, what I could do, I dreamed it. And I have dreamed it every night since I came to be in this place, but still I've never written it down until now.

The world is going to end today. Just as soon as the rain starts.

I do not write these words lightly. These days I do not write anything lightly.

_"What the prophet has written can't be unwritten. As he has seen it, so it shall come to pass." _

I never wrote it down because I knew that writing it would set the events in stone. Writing it down would turn it into history before it even has a chance to become the present. I suppose I thought, naively, that as long as I didn't write it there was a chance, the smallest sliver of hope that maybe someone or something could come along and change it.

I know better now. It was always going to end this way. Lucifer was always going to rise and the world was always going to fall. There is no stopping it. There is no last minute rescue. No hero to save the day.

So now I will do the only thing I can do. I will write. I will sit down and write about all of the great and terrible events that will soon come to pass, of how it will all end. More importantly however, I will write of how it all began because one cannot have an ending without a beginning.

And when that is done, when I'm finished, I will sit and wait for the rain.

You might be asking yourself who I am.

I am the Narrator to the end of the world.

I am the Author of the Apocalypse.

I am the Prophet Chuck, and this is how the world ends.

_**Excerpt from the Winchester Gospels**_

Castiel stands on the battlefield. The breath his body does not need is greedily, defiantly being sucked into his lungs and then expelled. If only to remind himself that he is still there to breathe if he so chooses. He's forced backward and feels the bones of someone long since dead, crush beneath his heel and doesn't even pause. He licks his lips and tastes someone else's blood. He waits for the rain.

He pulls his sword from a woman's stomach and before her body hits the ground, he has already moved on, his sword clashing with someone else's. The woman's blood still coating the blade is warm and fresh, steaming in the chilly air. He doesn't think about her, can't think about her. There are more enemies to battle, more lives to take. He can't think about the fact that before this, in her former life she was a school teacher, fourth grade. That she has a husband in North Dakota who is sitting by the phone, has been every day for the past eight months hoping that someone will call and say _"We've found your wife"._ They'd been talking about starting a family. She had been three months pregnant when the demon took over her body.

All of these things he knows to be absolute truth even only having just set his eyes on that body five minutes ago. All of these things he knows to be fact and he has no idea why. Before today he had to actively search a person's mind, their memories and feelings to get even the smallest knowledge of their life, but now he knows everything with one simple look. He knows he can look at anyone on this battlefield and know everything there is to know about them. He's known everything there is to know about all the lives of all the men and women he's killed in this place this day. When it's all over, if he's still here, then he will weep for them, for the lives that were interrupted, for the lives they will never have. He will weep for them all, but not yet.

Another body falls, new blood mingles with that of the teacher and he turns, looking for another fight, another kill. He doesn't have to look far. _It will be over soon_ he tells himself. It has to be over soon because he's not quite sure how much longer he can go on this way. He's been fighting for hours now, a never ending onslaught of enemy after enemy. At this point he's using everything he's got, every ounce of strength left in his body just stay upright, just to stay alive. He looks up and the sky is still the brilliant clear blue it was when the sun rose this morning but he waits for the rain and prays.

As his sword clashes with that of his opponent he sees her, standing in the middle of the battlefield. She is still breathing, she is still standing and there is not a scratch on her. She's surrounded by bodies; the field is littered with them, enemies and allies alike. She is drenched in blood, none of it, not a single drop her own. Her shirt is covered with Sam's blood. Already it's begun to dry. It seeped straight through the cotton, clinging to her skin from when she tried desperately, unsuccessfully to save his life. His body lies cold and motionless a few yards away.

Her hands are coated in Dean's blood, it's still relatively fresh and it drips from her fingertips to the ground where Dean lay dead at her feet. She watches it confused, as if she doesn't fully understand why it's on her hands and not in Dean's body. She makes an attempt to wipe it off, but it is a futile gesture, the only purpose it serves is to mix the blood together, making a bigger mess.

She looks around the field at the destruction. Her hand finds its way to the chain around her neck, out of habit more than anything and then she turns her head up into the clear blue sky, falls to her knees and begins to scream. He can't hear what she's saying but he can guess. Her rage is hopeless and serves no real purpose and she knows this, she must, but she can't stop the words spilling from her mouth. When she's done her body sags defeated but she pulls herself to her feet, she will not go out on her knees. She offers up one last plea to the heavens before tearing her gaze away ashamed, finding herself face to face with Castiel.

Their eyes meet and in that split second lightning flashes, slamming into the ground around her, a halo of crackling energy, illuminating the area, and finally, without a cloud in sight, the rain begins to fall.

And now Castiel knows. In that one single instance he knows everything. He knows now how this will end and most importantly, he knows now how it began.

The end of the world.

He thought he knew before. Thought he understood how all of these things came to pass, how he came to be here in this place at this time. He thought he knew who was to blame.

It would be easy to blame Sam Winchester. He killed Lilith after all, the act that broke the final seal releasing Lucifer from his hellish prison.

It would be just as easy to lay that blame on his brother, Dean Winchester. It was Dean who stepped off the rack, Dean who broke the first seal and set the whole thing in motion.

_"The first seal shall be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell. As he breaks, so shall it break."_

But it was evident to Castiel long ago that neither of them is to blame. Their fates were decided long before their actions condemned them.

He believed that it started, as one would assume, with death, or to be more accurate with eight deaths.

In 1972, the demon Azazel possessed a priest and sacrificed the lives of eight nuns at St. Mary's Convent in Maryland, allowing him a rare opportunity to actually speak to Lucifer.

In a way that _was_ where it all started.

You see, orchestrating an apocalypse is a very precise science. For something, the end result of which is chaos and destruction, you'd be surprised how much planning goes into it.

On that day in 1972, Lucifer told Azazel everything that he would need to do, laid out a timeline for him; a sequence of events where each step must be done at exactly the right time, in exactly the right place, with exactly the right people. A timeline so precise that were even one event out of place or out of time, the whole thing would have come tumbling down like a house of cards.

It was scripted like a play, each act carefully planned down to the smallest detail, the timing, the blocking, the lighting, and the special effects all choreographed down to the second. The playwright: Lucifer. The players, one very special family: The Winchesters.

Mary was manipulated into making a deal, a deal that would inadvertently cost her not only her own life, but set her husband and sons on a path she had no way to even imagine. Jess' death, the catalyst needed to bring Sam back into the fold. John's life, taken in just the right place, at just the right time, under just the right circumstances would be the very thing that would later prompt Dean into offering up his own life when it was Sam's turn. That deal directly placing Dean exactly where he needed to be, exactly when he needed to be there to step off the rack and break the first seal.

Every moment of their lives was carefully orchestrated. They were played with as if they were merely pawns on a chessboard or puppets on a string. They were manipulated time and time again. Everything that happened to them, everything that they did, every life that they took and even every life that they saved led them one step closer to their supposed destiny.

Most importantly, in the end it was all done of their own free will. Despite the manipulation, despite the years of planning and scheming behind the scenes, when it all came down to it, they always had a choice. It may not seem like much, but it makes all the difference in the world. So they made their choices the best way they knew how and when it was all over and done with they were somehow left with a situation that was completely of their own doing yet, at the same time, intrinsically out of their control.

In a way, it did start with eight deaths in a convent in 1972 and went on from there, except for the fact that it didn't. In the end when you string all of these events together they are directly responsible for the end of the world, and at the same time none of them are responsible at all.

All of the choices, all of the deaths and rituals, the seals and the sacrifices were completely meaningless. All of these things, either alone or together hold no power, are nothing more than a random series of events and would have forever been nothing more than a random series of events if it weren't for one thing.

One random, unrelated act, by an unassuming, unrelated person completely changed the course of history in ways no one would ever have imagined, and it happened a good thirty years _after_ that fateful day in 1972.

So Castiel knows now how it really began, and it began like this:

**July 5, 2008**

It began with a woman.

She emerges from a doorway and makes her way down onto the city street. She buys coffee from a man at a cart on the corner; exchanges a pleasant morning greeting as he hands over the cup and her change. She's smartly dressed, her clothes neatly pressed, her hair and makeup meticulous, a shoulder strap slung across her body, the bag resting low on her hip, bouncing with each step that she takes. She is pretty, if not beautiful, her features cute rather than striking.

There is no way to tell by looking at her that she is broken. There is no way to know that she is bleeding inside, that she feels as if her heart has been wrenched in two, and her life is spilling out of it at an alarming rate. Now way to see that she can't stop the flow and she can't repair the damage, that she's drowning and she can't breathe.

There is no way to tell that her soul, once bright and strong, has now turned brittle and fragile. If you were to look at it you would see a glass that's been broken. It's still intact but instead of being one flawless, solid piece, it now resembles an interconnected web of cracks that seem to run on forever. All the little pieces are frozen in place, in some sort of stasis but one wrong move, one strong breath could cause the whole thing to fall apart. And if that happens, all the king's horse and all the king's men…

No one knows that she suffers like this because she won't let them know. Or maybe they don't want to know, don't want to see it. Maybe when they look at her; they remember the part they played in her tragedy. They want to believe her façade, they want to believe that she's okay because if she's okay then they can be okay, then they can forget.

But she's not okay. She waits at a crosswalk, her head tilted up, her eyes watching the red flashing hand, waiting for it to turn into a green walking figure with the rest of the morning crowd because that's what she does every morning. The coffee she bought nine blocks ago is cooling in her right hand, all but forgotten. She hasn't drunk a sip, she only bought it because she'd always bought it before.

Many days she finds herself standing at the window in her apartment, staring down into the dark night that covers the city with the vaguest feeling she just woke up not five minutes before. Muscle memory has taken over where her brain has stopped and it wakes her in the morning and it feeds her and it clothes her and takes her out and brings her home and the whole time she is oblivious. Her body is prolonging her life without her consent.

But even amidst this pain-this pain that some days she fears will last forever, and some days she fears will not, she is still there. Someday the cracks in her soul will fill in, the glass will harden and get stronger. Someday the bleeding will slow, just a little, just enough for her to take a deep breath, and then another, and then another. Someday she will be okay; she will feel alive again, but not today.

Today she is still broken. Today she is still bleeding. She is still drowning, fragile and absent, and yet...

She crosses the crosswalk with the rest of the crowd. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a scene unfolding. It's one of the hundreds of thousands of scenes that she passes every day, that she normally sees, catalogues, and dismisses.

A young man is getting out of a cab and he's struggling with something in his arms, a baby carrier. Cradled inside is a baby, no more than a month old, crying. The man whispers nonsense words as he tries to do too many things at once. He balances the bag in his arms, digging in it for something while talking on his phone. Morning commuters, so focused on their own lives, on their own problems, hurry around him, jostling the man, his bag, and the carrier, spinning him in circles.

The baby is still crying and he is still digging for something and the crowd is still converging, oblivious. All it takes is one final push, one passing bump from a man typing on his phone, ignorant to the damage he's about to cause and everything breaks. The man's bag literally rips open from the bottom, the weight of the items inside simply too much for it to handle any longer.

The phone drops from his ear and slides into the gutter. Papers flutter around the street, the wind picking them up and carrying them along. Diapers and wipes tumble to the ground and are crushed under the feet of the morning walkers.

For some reason, this is more than he can take, more than he can possibly handle on this particular morning. He looks at the destruction, at the accumulated flotsam and jetsam of his life strewn about the pavement and he breaks down. He clutches the baby carrier to himself like a shield and shoves his way through the crowd to the steps of a nearby brownstone. He sinks down onto the cold concrete and he weeps.

The woman watches all this and something happens. She is still broken, she is still bleeding and drowning and yet she stops. And bends over. The city goes on around her. She simply becomes one more thing to side step, an inconvenient road block, something to be avoided. But she picks up all of the man's belongings. She retrieves the phone from the gutter, wiping the mud off on her crisp white sleeve. She chases down the papers that are flowing in the breeze, running in front of buses and reaching under parked cars until she has them all.

She empties her own bag onto the ground; her laptop and her folders, random things that were important enough to find their way into the bag but not important enough to find their way out again. She stuffs what she can into her purse and whatever does not fit, she'll just carry. Then she refills her bag with the man's things, the diapers and bottles, the papers and pictures, the wallet and keys and cell phone and she walks over to the stoop and sets it down gently at his feet.

Without saying a word she continues down the street to a coffee cart, retrieves a steaming cup of hot water and returns to the man who is now watching her with interest. She digs in the bag and retrieves one of the bottles, assuming that's what the man had been digging for earlier. She immerses it in the hot water for a few minutes before taking it out, she shakes a bit of the milk onto her wrist then passes it to him.

He takes it from her with tears in his eyes, cautiously unsure but smiles. "Thanks." He pulls the baby from the carrier and proceeds to feed him.

"Sure." The word feels strange coming out of her mouth and she dimly realizes it's because she's barely spoken in weeks. Her throat is scratchy and raw with the effort. "Are you okay?" she asks and she knows he's not because she's not and she can tell. Like it's a secret club, like they're both a member, it takes one to know one.

"No." He laughs at her uneasily and at least he doesn't lie. "My wife is in the hospital," he says, his eyes lifting to the imposing building across the street from them. "Cancer." The impact of the word forces a tremor through his whole body. "Diagnosed three days after…" He looks down at the baby in his arms. "Some days I just don't know what I'm doing and I know if she were here she could do it better and all I can think is that maybe one day she won't be here and I never imagined that she wouldn't be here and I don't think I can do this by myself."

She just stares at him while all of this anguish and doubt spills from his mouth and he blushes, ducking his face away from her.

"God, I'm sorry I didn't mean to dump all that on you. You were nice enough to help me and I can't believe I just totally unloaded on a complete stranger like that."

"My husband died," she says, every new word comes out a little smoother, a little easier. "He was murdered. Two months ago."

"That's sucks," the man says without thinking.

The woman is not hurt however, on the contrary she lets out a bark of laughter, surprising even to her if the look on her face is any indication. She can't remember the last time she laughed.

"Yes, it does suck." She agrees with him, the ghost of a smile still on her face.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean…"

"No." She shakes her head. "It's fine, it's nice even. Everyone else is so…" she trails off. "They never know what to say. It doesn't matter, whatever they say, it's the wrong thing. And they're trying to feed me, like if I'm properly nourished, I can't be sad. My freezer is full of so many casserole dishes that I couldn't possibly eat them if I lived five hundred lifetimes and someone's always there. Always there. Like they're scared to leave me alone." She sucks in a shaky breath, this is the most she's spoken in weeks and it's easier the more she talks.

"The funny thing is, and I don't think they even realize, it's not even about me. They're not trying to make me feel better; they're trying to make themselves feel better. But they can't make things better with words, they can't fix it with food and…they know this but it doesn't stop them." She's on a roll now and she couldn't stop if she tried. " And I want to tell them to just shut up, to leave me alone, that the only thing that could possibly make me feel any better was if they kindly went away and never came back and let me grieve in peace, but you can't do that, not to family. You know?" She looks over at him.

"Yes," the man breaths out in relief because he knows, because that's what his life has been like since he found out. She understands and nothing more has to be said between them, they both just get it. The bottle is finished but the man makes no motion to get up. "I don't think I can go in just yet."

"You don't have to," she says to him. He doesn't ask her to stay but she does. "Apparently it helps to get out of the house, breathe in some fresh air. I read it in a pamphlet. They leave pamphlets all over now, on healing, on moving on. They say you should try walking to work, but I work at home so I have nowhere to walk to. So every day I get up and I get dressed and I leave the house, mainly I go to the park and I walk around. I think it's stupid but it makes them feel better so I do it."

"Does it make you feel better?" he asks her amused.

"No, I hate the park." Chloe shakes her head laughing.

The baby starts crying, ruining the moment. "He needs to be burped," she reminds him and the man blushes for a minute.

"Right," he sputters, "I knew that." He awkwardly lifts the baby to his shoulder and pats it on the back but nothing happens.

"Here." She holds out her hands and though they just met five minutes ago the man passes over the crying child without hesitation. She cradles it against her shoulder and gently rubs circles across the baby's back, coaxing out the gas until they hear a satisfied belch. She smiles and hands the child back to his father who secures him into the carrier.

"You've got spit up on your jacket," he says horrified and she just shrugs.

"It's fine," she assures him.

The man stands then, pulling up the baby carrier and bag with him as he looks determinedly across the street. "Thanks for the bag, and…" The rest hangs in the air, it doesn't need to be said, and they both know this.

"Sure," she says again. The man steps out into the street but she calls out to him to wait. He turns to her confused as she fumbles under her collar for her necklace, a rosary. She pulls it over her head and feels the loss of it immediately, like a cold empty space against her chest. She found it a few days after the funeral and has been wearing it every day since. She stares at it for a second before her muscles once again take over for her brain and she holds it out to the man. "Take it," she tells him, though she doesn't know why.

"No, really." He smiles kindly at her. "I couldn't…I'm not…Catholic."

"Neither am I." She steps forward and presses the beads into his hand, closing his fingers around them tightly. "It was my husband's."

His eyes widen and he tries to give it back to her, shaking his head frantically. "I can't take something that…it's too valuable to you."

"Then don't take it." She smiles and takes a few steps back. "Borrow it." She retrieves her purse and computer from where she abandoned them earlier. "Keep it safe for me and then, one day, when I need it again, you can give it back."

Somehow, in a way he can't understand, this necklace, this symbol of a religion that is not his own, that yesterday would have been nothing more than beads, means more to him than the well wishes from his family, more than the assurances of the doctors or even the smile he can sometimes find on his wife's face while she sleeps. He looks up at the woman, at the way her hands unconsciously rub the spot on her chest where the rosary had been. He knows what it means to her and he knows that he should give it back but he can't so he simply clutches it tighter. "But I don't even know your name."

"Chloe." She smiles. "Chloe Sullivan."

"Steven." He smiles at Chloe. "Steven Temple. It was really nice to meet you Chloe Sullivan."

She tilts her head at him and lets out a deep relaxing breath. "It was nice to meet you too, Steven Temple. I'll see you around someday." She turns and before she can take two steps she is swallowed up by the crowd and he can't see her anymore and she's gone.

Chloe Sullivan was still broken, she was still bleeding, drowning and yet she stopped. She stopped and she helped someone else when she couldn't even help herself. He was a stranger and he was in pain and she could have passed him by. She had her own problems and she had her own pain and she could have kept walking and ignored him like every other person on the street that morning and yet she stopped.

Steven clutches the beads in his hands as he walks across the street, as he enters the hospital and as he sets out for his wife's room. When he woke up that morning _he_ was broken and _he_ was bleeding and _he_ was drowning and yet now he has hope.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

What Chloe didn't know, what Castiel now knows, is that someone was watching her that day. Someone was always watching, always seeing, always waiting. They were waiting for something, waiting for so long. Then Chloe stopped. And when she stopped that morning, she started something else, something horrible and terrible and tragic but in its own way…miraculous.

It's hard to see that part now, in hindsight, the miracle of it all, but Castiel can see it and it's beautiful.

So while it's true that the apocalypse never _could_ have started without all the death, all the sacrifice and the blood and the pain and the suffering, the apocalypse never _would _have started if Chloe Sullivan had not stopped.

_This is the way the world ends_

_This is the way the world ends_

_This is the way the world ends_

_Not with a bang but a whimper._

_T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men_


	2. All Along the Watchtower

**All Along the Watchtower**

_There must be some kind of way out of here_

_Said the Joker to the Thief_

_There's too much confusion_

_I can't get no relief_

**September 1, 2010**

Chloe checks her watch as the last drop of coffee falls into the carafe, and then pours herself a fresh cup. She hears the sound of the door opening behind her and a smile graces her face briefly. "You're late." She grabs another mug from the cabinet and fills it with coffee. "That's a first. Usually you're here before I get up. I had to make my own coffee this morning, regular boring coffee." She turns around, both mugs in her hands and stops in her tracks. "You're not…can I help you?" she asks nervously.

There are ten of them, men and women, standing just inside the doorway, staring at her. They could be ordinary people, they sure look like ordinary people but Chloe has been around long enough to know that appearances can be deceiving. She sets the coffee mugs on the counter behind her cautiously. "I'm sorry, how did you get in here? This is a private residence." Actually it's an apartment building that Chloe has painstakingly turned into what basically amounts to a high security vault that theoretically should be impenetrable by anyone who isn't invited, or well, herself.

"Her?" A blonde woman standing in the front of the group crosses her arms over her chest and stares at Chloe with what can only be described as barely concealed contempt. "You've got to be kidding me." She rolls her eyes and turns to the man standing next to her.

He stands at only about 5'7'', his body is not physically imposing, lithe and wiry but Chloe can tell there's hidden strength there under his clothing. He's moderately attractive, his hair falling carelessly into his eyes, a small smile on his lips, a strong jaw line showing off a bit of five o'clock shadow that makes him appear ruggedly sexy. However, it's his eyes that make her pause; they're piercing, staring straight through her with an intensity she's never known before.

The man doesn't pay any heed to his blonde companion, all his attention is focused on Chloe, so the blonde turns her attention once more to Chloe, looking her up and then down. "Her?" the blonde scoffs again and shakes her head.

Chloe smiles sweetly, hoping to disarm and beguile them. Chances are they're here to hurt her or kidnap her or possibly even kill her, but there is a slim chance, a very slim chance they're with the Publisher's Clearing House and are just about to present her with a very large check.

"What do you think?" The man turns his attention not to the blonde next to him but to a woman in the back. Chloe frowns as she catches a glimpse of red hair and the hint of a smirk and then someone is standing right in front of her. A red head, a red head who is staring at Chloe like she holds all the secrets to universe, and suddenly Chloe feels very very unsettled.

"I think maybe you should go." Chloe tries to tear her gaze away from the creepy redhead to the man who she supposes is in charge. But as soon as she moves, the redhead reaches out, lightening fast, grasping Chloe's chin tightly with only two fingers and drags Chloe's gaze back to her. "OK, this is getting-" The redhead uses her free hand to softly place a finger to Chloe's lips, shushing her.

There's something shiny about her," the redhead says. "Deliciously shiny." She smiles and squints at Chloe. "And if you turn your head…" The redhead turns away and laughs manically. "She disappears. I'm touching her but it's like she's not even there." Chloe decides she needs to add crazy to her description of the woman.

"Yes, but do you know why?" The man sounds bored.

Chloe's attention is once again captured by the redhead as she removes her finger from Chloe's lips and holds her hand in the air. She flicks her wrist and Chloe's eyes widen as the knife she used the day before to cut an apple, flies out of the sink and into the redhead's hand. The redhead releases her hold on Chloe's chin and grabs her wrist instead. Chloe watches, wondering why she's not bothering to try and stop it as the redhead pushes up Chloe's sleeve and then drags the knife across the very white skin on Chloe's forearm. Chloe bites her lip to keep from crying out; she doesn't want to give these people the satisfaction.

The redhead slowly brings Chloe's arm up to her face and then licks the length of the cut, practically purring.

"Mara?" The man is getting very impatient and not bothering to hide it.

"I can't be sure. Her blood tastes different but..." Mara pouts which seems ridiculous to Chloe and she can't stop the laugh that escapes. Mara glares and holds the bloody knife up so that Chloe can see it clearly, the threat effectively implied. "Barbas, can I cut her open and study her insides?"

Chloe's eyebrows rise. So they definitely aren't from the Publisher's Clearing House then.

"No." The man, Barbas, shakes his head. "We need her alive."

"And I like my insides, you know, on the inside," Chloe offers as Mara steps back a bit.

"Besides, he needs to see her. He'll be able to tell," Barbas adds.

The last remark is obviously directed at Mara, purposefully egging her on and apparently it is the wrong the thing to say, or rather the right thing to say because she releases Chloe and lunges for Barbas. He simply holds up a hand and Mara freezes in mid-air.

This snaps Chloe out of whatever trance she's been in and she uses the distraction to inch herself to the left where, ten feet away, is a panic button. Seeing as how she's moving as slowly as humanly possible, as not to draw attention to herself, she should make it there sometime next week. Bright side, she'll still have her insides, on the inside. In the next secret base, she vows to put a panic button on every available surface.

"He's been here, everyday, watching her. Isn't that proof enough?" another man asks stepping forward, seemingly to break up the fight.

Chloe pauses wanting nothing more than to ask who has been there watching her and what exactly that's proof of, but she quells the urge. Oliver's voice is ringing in her head, something he's been saying lately when he feels she's going too far, _"Curiosity killed the Sidekick." _She brushes off her momentary pause and continues moving on.

"It's not proof of anything." Barbas drops his hand and Mara falls to the ground glaring. "And don't think I don't see what you're doing." He turns his attention to Chloe and she freezes. Mara pulls herself to her feet with inhuman speed and she's right in front of Chloe again. This time her expression is murderous instead of curious, but there's still that glint of crazy and that is what scares Chloe the most.

Murderous, Chloe can handle, but crazy makes a person unpredictable. However, based on the events of the past few minutes Chloe is reassessing her opinion that these people are actually, well, people. Mara reaches back and slaps Chloe harder than Chloe reasons a person of her shape and muscle mass should be able to slap. It splits her lip and almost knocks her jaw out of place. "Hey," Chloe growls annoyed now. "Don't take your anger out on me; he's the one who insulted you." Chloe wipes her lip with the back of her sleeve and gingerly rubs her throbbing jaw.

Mara is really angry now. It looks as if she's gearing up to hit Chloe again and for a fraction of a second Chloe almost swears the woman's eyes turn completely black. She thinks briefly that maybe she shouldn't have taunted the crazy, murderous inhuman woman. In a blind panic, Chloe reaches out behind her and, almost as if God is smiling down on her, Chloe's fingers curl around the knife Mara used.

Without thinking Chloe lunges forward, sliding the knife into Mara's gut, feeling only a momentary amount of guilt. The look on Mara's face is one of surprise rather than pain and Chloe is now certain that her eyes are black as she stares at Chloe with what almost looks like a promise.

"I'll be back." Mara winks then throws back her head and Chloe drops the knife to the ground with a loud clatter as a column of black smoke pours from Mara's lips and the now lifeless body collapses in a heap on the ground.

"You shouldn't have done that," Barbas says raising his hand again. Chloe feels her feet being lifted off the ground though no one and nothing is there to pick her up. What's truly worrying however is the increasing pressure she feels around her neck, cutting off her oxygen supply. Chloe forces herself to focus and sees Barbas standing with his hand outstretched toward her. He smiles, closing his fist slightly, and the pressure around her throat increases tenfold.

Her vision starts to blur and black spots appear in front of her and then she's on the ground and she sucking in lung full after lung full of oxygen, never has she been more desperate for it in her life. Her hip is sore where she slammed into the ground and she can feel her throat swell. She looks up to see Barbas walking toward her.

"I thought you needed me alive." Chloe coughs and it hurts so much just to say those few words that tears spring to her eyes.

"You'd be surprised how much damage a body can take before it gives in to death." He smirks down at her.

Chloe resists the urge to snort because she does in fact know that from personal experience, but she's learned her lesson about taunting the crazy people. Barbas holds out his hand yet again and Chloe closes her eyes, waiting for the pain but it never comes and she chances a look, instantly regretting it.

It's possible in the span of two seconds that the situation has gotten exponentially worse.

Standing defiantly in the middle of her living room is yet another group of people. Instantly, Chloe catalogues the difference between the two groups. The newcomers are all standing rather stoically, feet slightly spread apart, arms clasped behind their backs, a classic soldiers pose and Chloe instantly knows that's what they are. Who they represent and whether they are friend or foe, is still a mystery to her.

They are dressed almost identical to each other, which adds another point to her growing solider theory. The lot of them are sporting three-piece-suits as opposed to the jeans and leather that the other group seems to favor. But they aren't just normal suits; they're all impeccably tailored and made from the finest materials. _Oliver would be jealous;_ she finds herself thinking almost automatically and then realizes the ridiculousness of that train of thought in the midst of everything that is happening.

Chloe sees Barbas from the corner of her eye, pulling himself off the ground and allows herself a small smile.

"Zachariah," Barbas practically spits out as he walks across the room, abandoning Chloe completely in favor of his new opponents.

An elderly gentleman steps forward to meet him and Chloe assumes this must be Zachariah.

"Barbas." He nods his head.

Chloe dares not move as the two groups face off against each other. The image immediately invokes a memory of West Side Story, the Sharks versus the Jets. She manages, just barely, to hold in her laughter at the picture in her head of the two groups suddenly bursting into song and dance. She shakes the strange thought out of her head before she really does laugh and silently chastises herself for the letting her mind wander again, in a situation as dire as this one.

"Is it her?" Zachariah asks and for a second Chloe thinks he's asking Barbas. She panics, not sure exactly what she's going to do if they're all working together.

"It's hard to say sir, but I think it is. Yes." Another man in a suit steps forward, glancing only briefly in Chloe's direction.

"Excellent." Zachariah smiles. The entire exchange feels insanely civilized for all of three seconds, before he orders her death. "Adriel, kill her." The man called Adriel moves toward Chloe. The blonde woman from before, the one who had assessed Chloe and obviously found her in some way wanting, counters his movement.

"Not going to happen." Barbas shakes his head in amusement and Zachariah's smile fades.

"Very well." Zachariah nods and snaps his fingers and Chloe has very little warning before the entire ceiling falls down on top of her.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe can hear screaming and crashing sounds and glass breaking but it's all slightly muffled, which is probably due to the fifty pounds of drywall and cement covering her at the moment. She takes an inventory and notices somehow miraculously the ceiling managed to fall around her if not exactly on top of her. Instead of crushing her, it merely buried her, which is something to be thankful for she supposes.

She can hear cursing now, it's closer and slightly less muffled than the other noises and a sliver of light pokes through the debris shining on her face. The cement shifts more as chunks are moved out of the way until there's an opening large enough for her to pull herself through. The only thing that stops her from doing just that is the realization that someone made that opening and the only people currently in the Watchtower are either trying to kill her or kidnap her. She frantically looks around for something large enough to use as a weapon and picks up a chunk of the ceiling, clenching it tightly in her fist.

A man's face appears in the opening and she thrusts her arm out, aiming for his temple. He's quicker than she is and grabs her wrist, halting her movements and squeezing until she opens her fist and the chunk of concrete falls to the ground uselessly.

"Hey!" He looks down at her annoyed. He doesn't look familiar; he isn't a part of either group that was in there before. He's someone new. Chloe briefly wonders how all of these people are getting into her supposedly secure and heavily fortified building. "Is that the way you normally say thank you?" he asks using the grip he's already got on her wrist to pull her free.

"Sorry," she mumbles as she dusts herself off. "Thank you," she adds as an afterthought.

"I know we just met-" The man smirks at her with dimples that Chloe decides to classify as dangerous, dimples that seem strange and out of place, especially as she notices the fight that's currently going on around her, as if a street riot has broken out in her living room.

"Actually, we haven't met," Chloe points out, trying to catch her breath and her sanity in the mess that her life has very recently become.

The man continues to smile as if she hadn't interrupted him. "But don't think any less of me, it's just…I've always wanted to say this."

"Always wanted to say what?" Chloe asks taking two steps to the right as a 32-inch computer monitor slams into the wall where she'd just been standing. To his credit, the guy only winces at the sound of the breaking glass.

He holds out his hand and smirks at Chloe. "Come with me if you want to live."

Two Terminator references in less than an hour are really just more than Chloe can take and she laughs. She laughs so hard that she has to bend over to catch her breath, her hands on her knees. "Oh, so not going to happen," she tells him. "But thanks, I really needed that."

"The line wasn't that bad." He looks at her annoyed.

"Actually, it was." Chloe assures him with a wink before taking off across the room at a run. She hears a curse and turns back quickly to see the guy (is) following her. Her steps almost falter when she catches sight of a familiar face across the room. Cass is there, fighting; blood running down his nose and Chloe wonders when he got there and what exactly he thinks he's doing.

"Dean!" The guy next to Cass calls out to the guy following Chloe. He's hastily drawing something on Chloe's reclaimed hardwood floors with bright orange spray paint and she has the urge to head in his direction and ask him what exactly it is he thinks he's doing. Then she looks around and sees the rest of the apartment.

Most of her equipment is broken into many many pieces, scattered all over the floor. The stove, which is normally located in the kitchen, is currently sliding across the floor on its side. The gas pipe that used to connect to said stove is now spewing a rather substantial stream of fire into the room. She looks up and can clearly see the sky above her head, likely due to the fact she no longer has a ceiling.

She gives thanks that the building at least still has four intact exterior walls, only seconds before a woman wearing a low cut jeans and a leather jacket grabs a man in a three-piece-suit and throws him through the large stained glass window and down to the pavement below. Chloe covers her head with her arms as millions of shards of colorful glass falls down on top of her and curses. That's the second time in a year someone's been thrown through that window and they don't exactly come cheap. She supposes in the midst of all this, a bit of spray paint doesn't really amount to much, so she stays her course and heads for the stairs.

"We don't have all day," the man with the spray can says.

"I'm working on it, Sammy," Dean, the guy following her calls back. "Would you just hold on a second?" This request is directed at Chloe.

"Sorry, can't." She grabs the railing, spinning herself around and takes the steps two at a time. She's almost at the top when Dean's hand winds around her waist, pulling her back down two steps. She's about to protest when a man in a plaid shirt falls from the upper level, right through the steps, and slams into to the ground. "Thanks," Chloe says again and Dean lets her go. She stares at the hole in the stairs where she should have been standing, takes a deep breath, and jumps the gap. She misses, her stomach slamming into the next step and all the air is expelled from her lungs in one very painful breath. She ignores it and pulls herself to her feet, scrambling up the rest of the steps. She can hear Dean grumble as he jumps the gap behind her, slightly more gracefully than she managed and follows her up.

"You're certifiable lady," he pants as he catches up to her. "In case you didn't notice, there's a war being fought in your living room."

"Actually, it hasn't escaped my attention." She snorts. "But there are a few things I need to do before I can leave."

"What's so important it's worth your life?" Dean scoffs at her as she walks over to the wall, grabs a picture frame holding a very boring landscape and tears it down. "I swear to god, if we're saving your high school yearbook or a stuffed animal-"

"Nothing so trivial, I assure you." Chloe pushes a button that was being hidden by the picture and suddenly the entire apartment is flooded with a pulsing red light and a piercing alarm wrenches the air. Dean resists the urge to clamp his hands over his ears and is about to ask Chloe what's going on when a metal ladder drops down from above and Chloe starts to climb.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

This was not what Dean had agreed to. Technically he never agreed to anything exactly. Castiel had just shown up in the middle of a hunt that he and Sam had spent the better part of three weeks working on and pulled them away with very little explanation. They'd reappeared in the middle of what Dean was positive he didn't want any part in. A group of angels led by Zachariah facing off against a horde of demons.

"Get Chloe out of here," Castiel said nodding to a blonde who appeared to be at the center of the whole thing and Dean stepped forward just as the ceiling fell down.

He'd assumed it would be easy to get her out but instead of heading for the door she'd gone in the opposite direction and now she's climbing a ladder that leads to God knows where, but he's pretty sure it doesn't lead out.

Dean follows her because apparently now that's his job, following crazy blondes who don't know that when angels and demons are fighting it out in your living room, it's time to cut and run.

He finds himself standing in a small room. It's barely big enough to hold the two of them, one more person and they'd definitely be invading personal space. The sirens are practically muted up here and Dean can once again hear himself think. The most interesting thing about the room is the large stained glass window that takes up one whole wall and turns the light, blue, green, and red in patterns over the floor. What is baffling to Dean however is that the room is otherwise completely empty. There's no furniture, the walls are bare. "What the hell?" Dean spins around wondering exactly what it is that's so important to Chloe here.

She ignores him, walks over to the wall and places her hand flat against the surface in a random spot. Only it's not a random spot as Dean soon finds out. A green light scans down the length of her palm.

"_Fingerprint Identification accepted_," a very business-like feminine voice confirms from hidden speakers around the room. Chloe leans forward and Dean watches as a red laser scans her eyes. "_Retinal Scan accepted_," the voice calls out again.

"Security Override 5828423," Chloe calls out.

"_Voice Identification accepted. Welcome Watchtower_." The voice sounds less business like than before and Chloe smiles as three of the walls sink into the floor revealing a whole new room. Two of the walls are covered with a multitude of monitors and computer equipment while one whole wall houses a weapons cache that could put the trunk of the Impala to shame.

"Who the hell _are_ you?" Dean asks Chloe amazed, confused, and if he's being perfectly honest, slightly aroused.

"Thanks Oracle." She ignores Dean. "We've got a Code 17b." Chloe starts typing rapidly as the screens come to life.

"_That is impossible_." The voice that she called Oracle counters. "_There is no one currently in the field and no ongoing Ops at this present time_."

"I know that, but the Base is currently under attack," Chloe explains. "Or did you not hear the sirens?"

"_Hold please, while I investigate your claim_," Oracle announces.

"Like I'm lying to her?" Chloe mumbles under her breath.

"What's a Code 17b?" Dean asks.

Chloe jumps practically two feet in the air, having forgotten that he was even there. "It's…uh…damage control request," she explains as she continues typing.

"_Your original assessment is correct. I fear the Base is under attack_," Oracle announces to Chloe.

"Yes, thank you for that." Chloe rolls her eyes and continues her work.

"_However, Code 17b does not apply in this situation_," Oracle continues, either ignoring or not registering the sarcasm in Chloe's voice. "_I will send out an alert. Code 84r_."

"No," Chloe snaps unintentionally. "That's not necessary, just a Code 17b. Whatever's going on out there, it's not our fight. I just need to make sure that it doesn't spill over into the general population. The cops have likely already been called out what with the man flying through my window into the middle of the city street. I just need someone to clear the area, evacuate the rest of the building and deal with the police."

"_Are you not going to attempt to salvage the Base?"_ Oracle asks.

"There's no point." Chloe shakes her head sadly.

_"If I may enquire as to my own fate?"_ Oracle asks after a brief pause.

"Relax, as we speak, I'm downloading you to the off-site server units. You'll be fine." Chloe smiles and turns to Dean. "I never should have made her sentient."

"What do you mean _made_ her?" Dean asks confused.

"Oracle is a computer." Chloe laughs at the look of astonishment on his face. "A very moody computer."

"_I resent the implication that I have anything as human as 'moods'_." Oracle now sounds quite annoyed.

There's the low rumble of an explosion from downstairs and Chloe winces typing faster. "That would be the gas line," she says looking over her shoulder at Dean and nods behind him to the wall of weapons. "Make yourself useful and grab whatever you can fit into the bag."

Weapons, Dean understands. He wastes no time in following that particular order, grabbing the duffel bag on the floor and loading everything he can into it.

"_Incoming call from Green Arrow, should I patch him through_?" Oracles asks and if Dean didn't know better he'd say she sounds slightly pissed off.

"If you don't mind," Chloe says sweetly.

"_What the hell is going on_?" A very angry male voice is now coming through the speakers.

"Wish I knew Arrow and I don't have time to speculate," Chloe informs him.

"_Tell me what you do know_," he snaps at her.

"Watchtower is compromised, I'm initiating a shutdown."

"_Are they after information_?" Oliver asks.

"Actually they're after her," Dean answers before Chloe has a chance. She turns to him and somehow manages to convey, _'Thanks very much I was hoping to keep that little tidbit to myself you son of a bitch'_ with one look. Dean shrugs, not sorry at all and she returns to her work.

_"Is Cass there?"_ Oliver finally asks breaking the silence.

Chloe pauses, her mouth open uncertainly. "Actually, yes he is."

_"Okay, you need to do whatever he tells you to."_ Oliver's voice sounds slightly more panicked now and Chloe would really love to know why.

"What's going on?" Chloe asks him. Her fingers now paused, hovering over the keyboard.

"_Just for once in your life, trust me, please."_ Oliver is actually begging her now. "_Oracle, I need you to initiate Operation Get Away." _

"_Initializing now,"_ Oracle confirms as a program Chloe has no knowledge of opens up on her screen and starts itself.

She is beginning to understand that Oliver knows what's going on, that in some way it's like he's been waiting for this. She wonders for how long and why he didn't bother to tell her. She knows whatever he does, whatever he keeps from her, he does it to protect her and while she's not wild about that, she can deal with it.

She and Oliver have always had a strange relationship. They trust each other implicitly. Though they may not always show it in conventional ways; like the time Chloe manipulated every aspect of Oliver's life into a small screen version of '_The Game'_ to get him back on the right path, not to mention playing Big Brother, tracking his every movement and bugging various articles of his clothing.

What she can't deal with, what is completely not acceptable is that he wasn't the only one in on this secret. It's obvious that Cass knows something and what's becoming more obvious to Chloe is that Victor does as well. There's absolutely no way that Oliver could have accessed Chloe's system, written and inserted a secret program into Oracle without her knowledge. It had to have been Victor; the program scrolling down her screen has his fingerprints all over it. "Oliver-" The break in protocol is unintentional and she curses herself for using his name but she's angry and she's scared. If they were doing this behind her back, things just got a whole lot more serious than she ever could have imagined.

_"Cass knows what to do. He knows where to go. Please just go with him. Get out of there as fast as you can...please_." The desperation in his voice strikes something within Chloe and she nods, then remembers that he can't see her.

"Fine," Chloe says.

"_Is everyone else online?"_ he asks her all business again.

Chloe grabs something off the table, slips it in her ear and pulls up a new screen. "Impulse, Cyborg, Canary, Aquaman report location." Chloe calls out.

_"Canary reporting. Location five blocks away. ETA one minute." _

_"Cyborg and Aquaman reporting. Location across town. ETA five minutes." _

_"Impulse reporting. Location Watchtower. What the hell is going on in here? There are some seriously scary dudes throwing couches around and one crazy guy painting on your floor and spewing Latin." _

Chloe turns to Dean. "That would be my brother, Sam." Dean smiles at her sheepishly. "Probably trying a mass exorcism."

"A mass-" Chloe freezes. The implication that Sam's trying an exorcism means the things he's trying to exorcise are demons, which means far too many things for Chloe's brain to process at the moment. "Will it work?" she asks instead.

"Maybe." Dean shrugs. "I wouldn't bet the farm on it."

Chloe nods and transmits over the comm-link earpiece again. "Do not engage. Repeat for all. Whatever you do, when you get to the Watchtower, do not engage. These people-" She looks at Dean again and remembers they aren't people, they're _demons_. "These…things are seriously out of our league."

_"What exactly am I doing here then?"_ Impulse asks.

_"We're initiating Operation Get Away," _Oliver says before Chloe can tell them what's happening. _"Impulse, I need you and your super speed to get rid of anything and everything that could possibly link the Watchtower to any of us. Any mail, any notes, any files or freaking Post-its, anything." _

_"On it." _

_"Cyborg, I need you and Aquaman off-site. Chloe's transferring all the files and Oracle to the backup server farm, I need you to make sure it gets there intact,"_ Oliver orders.

_"Rerouting,"_ Cyborg affirms.

"Cyborg." Chloe interrupts. "You hack into my system again and I'll shut down all your vital programs one by one until you're nothing more than a glorified can opener." She's angry and she might be overreacting but she honestly doesn't care at the moment. Chloe's head is spinning; they were all in on it. For God only knows how long, there's been a secret plan in place to get Chloe out, should supernatural beings come by to try and kill her and everyone but her has known about it. "Do you read?" she asks when he doesn't respond.

_"Loud and clear_," he says softly. "_Chloe, I..."_

They're obviously all out of their minds right now, throwing protocol out the window. "Later." She blows him off; she just can do this right now.

Oliver breaks the tension. _"Canary, I need you on damage__ control. Evacuate the building and the rest of the street, you know the drill"_

_"Yes, sir." _Dinah's voice is more mocking than anything but there's no doubt she'll follow the order.

_"I'll be there in less than two minutes and you'd better be out by then," _Oliver says then disconnects the line without waiting for a reply.

"Chloe," Dean calls to her, catching her attention. He slings the bag of weapons over his shoulder and taps his watch.

"I'm going as fast as I can," Chloe protests still typing.

"I really don't want to have to throw you over my shoulder and drag you out of here, but I will," Dean assures her.

"You really don't want to try and throw me over your shoulder," Chloe counters, a smile on her face. "Oracle, I'm shutting you down."

_"I would really rather you did not do…"_ she trails off as all the monitors go black. "_That_." The voice is no longer filling the room but coming, strangely enough, from Chloe's pocket. Chloe turns to Dean and pulls out her phone confused.

"Oracle?" Chloe asks cautiously.

"_While you were transferring me to the server farm I took the liberty of downloading a limited copy of my program to your PDA."_ Oracle explains.

"You took the liberty?" Chloe asks slightly freaked out.

"_Yes_," Oracle says. "_Which is likely a good thing as I am not sure that you would make it out of the building without me." _

"I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself before I created you," Chloe points out, trying not to dwell on the fact that she's currently arguing with her cell phone.

"_I do not like to think about a time before I was created_," Oracle reminds her as if she's told her this before. "_And I can be very helpful to you. For example did you know that the kitchen explosion took out the emergency ladder?_"

Chloe pauses and looks down to see the ladder is indeed gone then turns to Dean. "Right," he says and drops the bag to the ground, opening it up and digging out a length of rope. As they anchor the rope to the place where the ladder had been, Oracle can't help but chime in again.

"_You are welcome,"_ she calls from Chloe's phone. Chloe promptly stuffs it in her pocket, muting any further commentary.

"That's going to get old fast," she grumbles.

"After you," Dean offers and Chloe slides down the rope. The bag drops down after her and then Dean slides to the floor. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he scoops up the bag and tosses it back over his shoulder. "Now, can we please get out of here?"

"Just a second," Chloe pleads, touching her earpiece again. "Impulse, report to the safe room entrance."

"At your service."

The guy appears in front of the two of them so quickly, for a second Dean thinks it has to be an angel or a demon and pulls Chloe behind him, taking a swing at the guy.

Impulse dodges it easily, with an amused smile on his face and Chloe grabs Dean's wrist as he makes a move to try again.

"Stop." Chloe catches Dean's attention. "He's a friend." Dean steps back but doesn't drop his alert stance. "Bart is everything clear?" Chloe addresses the guy Dean now realizes must be Impulse.

"This place is squeaky clean, spotless," Bart tells her. "What else do you need me to do?"

"Get out of here," Chloe says and Bart frowns motioning around them at all the destruction. "I'm serious Bart, there's nothing we can do here, this isn't our fight. We can't win, and I _can't_ guarantee you're faster than these guys."

"But-" Bart tries to protest.

"Bart, I am ordering you to get as far away from this place as you possibly can." Chloe grabs his shoulders.

"I leave you here alone, Arrow kills me." Bart shakes his head, clearly torn between obeying Chloe and protecting her.

"She's not alone," Dean points out. "And she's right, this is not your fight, there's no way you can win and I _can_ guarantee you're not faster than these guys."

Something in Dean's tone, or possibly his eyes that lets Bart know that whether or not he believes these things to be true, now is certainly not the time or the place to argue about it. "I don't know about these guys, but I guarantee I'm faster than you. If anything happens to her, you can try to run, but I'll chase you and there's no doubt in my mind I'll catch you. There is no place on this earth you can hide that I can't find you."

Dean should have laughed. He's faced down demons and angels and Lucifer himself and there's no way that this guy, this kid really should scare him, and he doesn't. But if there is one thing Dean understands its loyalty and family so he simply nods. "Understood."

Bart impulsively kisses Chloe's cheek, offers her a wink, and then he's gone.

"We've got to get out of here." Castiel is suddenly, inexplicably in the space that Bart has just vacated.

"Cass?" Chloe asks confused and Dean turns to her surprised.

"You two know each other?" Dean raises an eyebrow.

"He works for me." Chloe tilts her head. "What are you doing here?"

"He works for you?" Dean turns to the man in question. "You work for her?"

"I will explain everything when we are at least two thousand miles away from here," Castiel promises.

"Wait a minute, are you with them?" Chloe asks Castiel, putting the pieces together.

"I did not enjoy lying to you." Castiel hangs his head.

"I'm surprised he was even able to lie to you at all," Dean scoffs.

"Your brother is suffocating." Castiel turns to Dean annoyed. "You might want to see to that."

Dean glares at Castiel then turns around. Sure enough, Sam is being held three feet off the ground by a demon and his face is turning an interesting shade of purple. "Son of a bitch." Dean tosses the bag with the weapons in it to Chloe and jumps over the railing of the second floor, landing into a very rough roll.

Before he can take two steps however the demon holding Sam against the wall drops him and turns. He's likely trying to find the owner of the green arrow that's protruding from his chest cavity. Sam uses the distraction to swing up with the knife in his hands, catching the demon under the rib cage and Dean sees the familiar lightening storm under the man's skin that lets him know the demon is dead.

A man steps over the body on the floor, he's dressed in a suit and tie, though Dean knows instinctively that he's not an angel. He lowers the compound bow to hang loosely at his side and extends his free hand to Sam. "I'm assuming you're one of the good guys?" the guy asks, dimples flashing and Dean's man enough to admit if he was a woman, he'd probably swoon.

"Thanks." Sam takes the offered hand and pulls himself to his feet.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Son of a bitch." Chloe's anger is no longer in check when she sees a smiling Oliver Queen and she shoves the weapons into Castiel's chest and jumps down what's left of the stairs. "You tell everyone to stay away then you show up here? I want to know what's going on and I want to know now."

"We don't have time." Oliver swallows when he catches sight of her. "You should have been out of here already." He looks accusingly at Castiel who throws his hands up in surrender.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on." Chloe sets her stance and puts her hands on her hips and glares.

"Yes, you're very intimidating and any other time I'd probably be scared of you but honestly, we've only got like five minutes before this place blows and I don't know about you but I'd like to be far away when that happens," Oliver says almost sheepishly.

_"Three minutes and twenty seven seconds to be precise. Would you like me to begin a countdown for you?_" Oracle calls out from Chloe's pocket.

"I thought you shut her down." Oliver pauses as Chloe pulls out her phone.

"I did, she took it upon herself to load her program onto my phone." Oliver's eyes widen and Chloe brushes him off. "Yes, it's all very exciting; she's learning to think for herself."

"_I have always been capable of free thought_," Oracle interrupts.

"Such are the risks when you dabble in Artificial Intelligence," Chloe continues.

"_You know how much I hate being referred to as such,_" Oracle reminds her.

"Could we shelve this discussion for a later date and get back to the part where you're going to blow up the Watchtower." Chloe stares at Oliver.

"I knew you'd get stuck on that one tiny detail." Oliver sighs.

"You're going to blow up the Watchtower?" Chloe smacks him in the chest annoyed.

"You don't understand. We have to," Oliver says desperately.

"You have to? _Have_ to?" Chloe scoffs. "You don't have a Plan B?"

"This is Plan B." Oliver winces.

"This is Plan B? What was Plan A? How did you manage to fail at Plan A so quickly?" she screams and Oliver grabs her arm before she can hit him again.

"Chloe, you can hit me all you want later I promise, but right now we've got to move," Oliver pleads with her and it makes her understand the seriousness of the situation. She stands up straighter, nodding.

"Let's go then." She walks to the door, Oliver still gripping her arm and she ends up pulling him behind her. No one notices as they slip out of the doorway and down the stairs. For people who had come there for Chloe, they are far too easily distracted by the prospect of beating the crap out of each other.

They've barely made it two blocks when Chloe hears the explosion. The ground shakes under her feet, throwing her off balance and Dean reaches out to steady her. They aren't far enough away to be clear of the debris and they quickly retreat to covered shelter. Chloe turns as the fireball reaches up into the sky, a cloud of smoke quickly engulfing it. When the smoke clears there is nothing more than a pile of rubble and a huge hole in the ground.

Something in Chloe's throat clenches making it hard for her to breathe. "Chloe?" Oliver reaches out tentatively to touch her shoulder and she spins around, her eyes blazing.

"You son of a bitch." She hits him again, and again, she clenches her fist and pounds into his chest in an attempt to inflict on him even just a fraction of the pain she's feeling.

"Chloe." Oliver's voice is calm and placating even as Chloe screams and thrashes. His hands reach out and grab her wrists but his grip is not painful. "Chloe," he tries again but she can't or she won't stop long enough to listen to him. "Chloe." He tightens his fingers around her wrist briefly; just long enough catch her attention. "I'm sorry," he says and the words seem insufficient and almost cruel in a way but somehow it's enough to take the fight out of her.

"That was…" she pants, trying to catch her breath. "My…" she sobs and her fists unclench. Her hands fall uselessly to his chest and grip the fabric of his shirt like it's the only thing keeping her upright. "Jimmy," her voice cracks and Oliver pulls her close whispering soft calming words against her temple as she collapses into his embrace.

She'd been so strong and collected before. There were things that needed to be done and she didn't have time break down, didn't have time to fall apart. But now the immediate danger is gone and she's just watched her Watchtower, her home, her last physical link to Jimmy literally disintegrate around her and it's all just more than she can be expected to handle.

Her knees buckle and Oliver grips her tighter. "I've got you," he assures her. "I'm sorry."

Dean feels as if he's intruding on something private and he looks over at Sam, who looks like he's about to start crying. "Cass," Dean whispers and if his own voice sounds a little rough he'll say it's from smoke inhalation. The angel nods once and walks over to Oliver and Chloe.

"We have got to go," Castiel tells Oliver who nods, still holding Chloe. "It will be easier if I…" Oliver must know what Castiel is saying without further explanation because he nods, looks down at Chloe and kisses her forehead before the angel lays a hand on her shoulder.

Her body immediately goes slack and Oliver reaches down to lift her up into his arms. Her head lolls against Oliver's chest and Dean can see the tracks her tears have made as they rolled down her cheeks and then before he can even blink they all disappear.

"_No reason to get excited,"_

_The thief, he kindly spoke_

"_There are many here among us_

_Who feel that life is but a joke_

_But you and I we've been through that_

_And this is not our fate_

_So let us not talk falsely now, the hours getting late"_

_-Jimi Hendrix*_

_*The song was originally written by Bob Dylan and then covered by Hendrix but they evoke very different feelings when hearing them, Dylan's folksy harmonica versus Hendrix frantic guitar. The Hendrix version, to me at least, seems faster, lending itself to the feeling of action and urgency that I wanted to evoke with this chapter. I know that there are many different versions to many of the songs that I use as song titles for these chapters but for those people who want to actually listen to the music as they read, I want them to listen to the versions that I hear in my head so I list the artists of the versions that I want not necessarily the artists that originally wrote the songs. _


	3. Behind Blue Eyes

**Behind Blue Eyes**

_But my dreams_

_They aren't as empty_

_As my conscience seems to be_

_I have hours, only lonely_

_My love is vengeance_

_That's never free_

_"The Watchtower's gone," Chloe whispers sadly. "Completely destroyed." The pillow under her head is softer than she remembers, the blankets are warmer but this is a dream so that's to be expected. _

_"I know." Jimmy offers her a brief smile. _

_The first few times she found herself in this dream land she wasn't as aware, didn't understand and she misses that naiveté. The ability to lose herself in the moment, the ability to think, if even just for a few minutes that Jimmy is alive and they are happy._

_"I won't forgive him for that," Chloe says defiantly. _

_Jimmy shakes his head at her in amusement. "You will," he argues._

_"I can't," she counters helplessly._

_"You can," Jimmy assures her. _

_"That was yours, he had no right." Chloe is fuming now._

_"That wasn't mine, it was never my home," Jimmy reminds her. "I bought it for you. You turned it into what it had become, you and Oliver. You made it yours." Chloe sucks in a deep breath. "I also only bought the top floor, Oliver bought the rest of the building remember, so technically he can do whatever he wants to it." _

_Chloe snorts in annoyance because he's right. He's always right and that annoys Chloe even more. Partly because she knows he's not real. She knows that he's just a figment of her imagination, created by her mind as some subconscious way to help her work through her problems. She knows that the words that come out of his mouth are really her words and not his and that makes the whole thing even worse because she's essentially arguing with herself and 90% of the time she can be a pretty insufferable know it all. _

_"What's really going on here?" Jimmy asks her softly. _

_"I can't remember your laugh," Chloe admits shamefaced. "I can't remember what it sounds like. If it's loud and open or just a small chuckle. I can't remember the last time you even laughed, and I think that was my fault." Tears are falling from her eyes now and Jimmy softly wipes them away before they can hit the pillow. "I'm forgetting other things too, little things. Like the way you smelled or how you sipped your coffee. Every day I forget something else, but I always had the Watchtower to remind me of the big things. Now that it's gone, how long until I start to forget those too?" _

_Jimmy pulls her closer and kisses her forehead softly. "It was just a building Chloe," he reassures her again. "It was made up of bricks and mortar, steel and wires, and it was never intended to be my tomb but that's what it became." Her sobbing slows more with every word. "Somewhere along the way, you got sealed in there with me and that's not right. Maybe now that it's gone you can finally be free."_  
_  
She pulls away sharply and stares at him. "I don't want to be free." She looks almost hurt at the implication and Jimmy just smiles at her. _

_"It's been two years Chloe." He kisses her again, this time on the lips and she allows herself a brief moment to forget that he's not real. "It's time to wake up now." _

**September 2, 2010**

Chloe's eyes open slowly, she can't remember falling asleep and she has a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that it wasn't exactly her choice. She pulls herself up to a sitting position and looks around. She appears to be in some sort of cabin. Oliver, Castiel and the rest of her team are arguing in the kitchen area. She's not sure when everyone got there or how long they've been there. They're not yelling, not yet, but Chloe can see Oliver's barely restrained anger and knows it won't be long before it dissolves into a screaming match.

"I hired you so that this exact situation wouldn't happen," Oliver hisses at Castiel and Chloe remembers all the things that he's been hiding from her.

"Remember that I do not actually work for you." Castiel's voice is somehow threatening without being superior and he's suddenly someone that Chloe doesn't know. She's worked with him, alongside him for the past year, one year to the day actually, and he's the first person in a long time that she thought she could trust implicitly and now she really doesn't even know who he is.

She sighs; she doesn't have the energy to deal with that at the moment. She sees something that makes her smile though; sitting on the table in front of her is a familiar white paper cup. She grabs it and it instantly warms fingers she had not realized were cold. She takes the lid off slowly and sniffs, breathing in the scent of a perfectly brewed cup of coffee.

"Almond mocha," a familiar voice says from beside her and she turns to her left to see Dean stretched out in the chair next the couch. She has a feeling he's been sitting there the whole time while she was asleep and she finds the thought less creepy and more comforting that she would have believed. "The short speedy guy went and got it." Dean smirks. "Said if we valued our lives it would be best to have it on hand the moment you woke up."

"Bart knows me far too well." Chloe smiles and sips the coffee, it's still hot.

"Who's Jimmy?" Dean asks and Chloe only just stops herself from choking on her second sip. She swallows hard and the liquid seems to swirl around in her stomach, suddenly very sour. "You were…you said his name before Cass…and then when you were sleeping you sort of, well you talk a bit," Dean finishes lamely.

Chloe chances a look at Dean and his lips are quirked in an endeared smile as he says this and funnily enough that makes it easier, takes away the sting. "He's my husband." Chloe spins the ring around her finger.

"Oh." The word settles between them heavily and Dean coughs uncomfortably. He realizes too late that he stepped into something that maybe would have been better left unsaid at the moment.

"Technically my ex-husband, even more technically he _was_ my ex-husband," she babbles and continues, "He died a little over two years ago. He gave me that apartment as a wedding present, I just...I'm sorry if I lost it."

"No apology necessary," Dean assures her. "When my Dad died, all I had left of him was my car and let's just say I understand."

Chloe smiles and takes another sip of the coffee; it doesn't hurt as much as she thought it would to talk about him. Though the last person she's really talked about Jimmy to had been Cass. She turns back to the group whose voices have risen slightly. "How long have they been fighting?"

"Oh I don't know. Sammy, how long have we been here?" Dean calls over his shoulder and Chloe looks to see the other guy from her apartment. Spray paint guy.

"A few hours." Sam smiles at Chloe and she remembers they have yet to be formally introduced.

"A few hours then," Dean tells Chloe with a smirk, answering her previous question.

"Excuse me." Chloe sets the coffee cup down and walks over to the fight. Oliver cuts himself off mid-sentence when he sees her. Anything he might have wanted to say is prevented rather succinctly when Chloe's fist connects with his jaw.

"Chloe." Castiel steps forward and she holds up a hand, not even turning around to look at him because right now she just can't.

"You good?" Oliver pants, grabbing his jaw and pulling it hard. Chloe hears a very satisfying pop as he puts it back into place. He winces. She smiles.

"Not even close," she warns him. Her fingers are throbbing but there's no way she's going to let Oliver know that she was even the slightest bit affected.

"Fair enough." He nods at her and that's it. They aren't good by any means but he knows she's angry and she knows he's sorry and that's really all that needs to be said. One day they'll realize without even trying that things have gone back to normal and that will be that.

"Chloe." Castiel steps forward again and she closes her eyes and shakes her head, she's still not ready for him.

"Someone who is not one of them had better start talking and give me a plausible explanation as to why we just blew up my apartment."

"Long version or short version?" Dean stands up and walks over.

"Short version." Chloe turns her attention to him.

"Right then." Dean pauses a moment trying to collect the past three years into a few sentences then smiles. "Well God's gone missing and in his absence we inadvertently freed Lucifer from hell and jump started the apocalypse. Now there's a war brewing between angels and demons and not in a lame Dan Brown way but in a when-the-smoke-clears-people-might-be-considered-an-endangered-species sort of way. Cass, who is an angel in case you didn't know, thinks that somehow you're the key to ending this whole thing. Says you're the only thing that stands between humanity and Hell on Earth so pretty much everyone who wants that to happen, wants you dead."

"OK." Chloe takes a deep breath and looks around. Not a single person in the room seems to be even slightly pulsed by anything Dean has just said. God missing, Lucifer raised, a battle between Heaven and Hell and herself caught in the middle. "So then, maybe the long version?" She sits down heavily at the table and Dean smiles and follows suit.

Then he tells her their story, he tells her everything. He talks about his mother's death, about his father's quest for revenge. He talks about growing up, learning how to fight, how to kill.

He talks about his brother's death. Even though the event is long since passed, even though Sam is sitting two feet from Dean, smiling and well, and obviously not dead, as Dean recounts it, he re-lives it. He re-lives that moment when he realized that his brother was gone forever, re-lives that pain that comes from understanding that he failed to protect the only person he had left in the world.

Chloe can relate, knows exactly what Dean feels, what he's going through. She finds herself reliving Jimmy's death at the strangest moments-while brewing a pot of coffee in the morning, when she straightens the rug on the part of the floor where he took his final breath. Maybe Jimmy had been right, the Watchtower had become his tomb.

As Dean tells his story he falters slightly. It's barely noticeable but Chloe catches it. He knows she catches it but she simply nods in understanding, in encouragement because for Chloe, like Dean, though these wounds are old they are still so very fresh, so very raw. He continues on, talking about the deal he made for his brother's life.

When he talks about his own death it's with a lot less emotion, almost no emotion actually, though Chloe can't help but notice the way Sam's eyes darken. He's pretty flippant when he talks of the thirty years he spent being tortured in hell. Then his jaw sets and he actually stops talking completely for a second.

Sam makes a move to take over story hour but Dean cuts him off effectively with one simple glare. He takes a moment and then continues. This is something he needs to tell himself, something he needs to take the responsibility for. Chloe can feel her heart breaking for him as he tells her, perfectly cold and detached, about stepping off the rack, about taking up the knife, and breaking the first seal. She holds back her tears though, because she knows that he would not want them, nor does he need them and he quickly moves away from his confession to the rest of the story.

He explains about Sam, how he was chosen, how he was manipulated. He speaks of Ruby and the demon blood and killing Lilith. Chloe can feel through his words, hear in the tremble of his voice at points in this part of the telling, that Dean still blames Sam, just a bit, just enough to make himself feel guilty for it. Yet in the same breath he defends Sam's actions as fiercely as only someone of the same blood ever can or ever will.

And this is where his story ends. God is missing, Lucifer is free, and Sam and Dean and are at the center of it all. The angels are all set to let the apocalypse play out - so long as it plays out their way. They want Dean to become the vessel for Michael, Sam to become the vessel for Lucifer, and they want the two brothers to come together in a Battle Royale of biblical proportions, an Old Testament Thunder Dome. Two men enter, one man leaves, humanity crushed in the fallout.

Everyone is quiet when Dean finishes his tale. Chloe has had a lot of experience in this, prides herself on being able to absorb a massive amount of impossible information, process it, and formulate a plan in a very short period of time, but this, this may even be too big for her to handle at once. Numbly she looks up at Dean and swallows a few times before she regains the ability to speak. "Where do I fit into all of this?" she whispers. Because inexplicably she is in this, she's right in the middle of it if Castiel is to be believed, and the fact that not six hours ago there were angels and demons fighting over her in her living room Castiel _must_ be believed.

"Seeing as how I just learned about you six hours ago, Cass could probably explain that better." Dean glances over Chloe's shoulder. "That is if he's allowed to talk."

Chloe turns her head and looks at the man, _angel_, she corrects herself. It's so obvious that's what he is, that's what he's always been and she feels so incredibly foolish for ever believing he was anything less. She nods at him and something in him seems to sag in relief and he takes the seat opposite her. He reaches out to take her hand but stalls his motion when she flinches and pulls away.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**June 16, 2009**

He has been watching her for days now and he still has no idea why. At first glance, there is nothing, absolutely nothing remarkable about this woman, this girl really, nothing that he can put his finger on at least. But he knows. He knows with a feeling that he has never felt before; with a certainty he cannot understand but also cannot deny that she is the one. She will lead them to victory; she will lead them to God. He just wishes he knew how, or why, or even more importantly when.

**June 23, 2009**

He has been watching her for a week now and he has discovered an entire new world through her eyes. It is a world not unlike his own, full of heroes and villains, of epic battles and terrible losses but on such a different scale if he had not seen it with his own eyes, he never would have believed it. She hasn't left the building in days, since he first bumped into her; apparently she very rarely leaves the building unless it's of the utmost importance.

There are people in this world, people that Castiel still can't believe he didn't know about before. People with such extraordinary abilities that they sometimes amaze even him. He's learned about what they call Metas. He's learned about a place her heroes refer to as 33.1, where experiments are done. He's seen evidence with his own eyes of the villains that seem to be attracted to Metropolis, villains who also find themselves endowed with certain gifts. As is so often the case when people are recipients of powers greater than the common man, Castiel finds it doesn't take much to corrupt them. Human nature hasn't changed much in the hundreds of thousands of years since he's been studying them.

The thing is, these people, the people that he sees marching in and out of Chloe's apartment at all hours of the day. These people with abilities that he'd never dreamed of, they aren't corrupted. They use their powers for good, they seek out injustice in the world and they do whatever they can to stop it, to save others, to help. And she is at the center of it all. She watches over her people, her team, from her perch high above the city. She sees everything and she knows everything and she leads them with a fearless conviction that what she's doing is _just_ and _right_ and Castiel knows that feeling because that's how he feels.

She seems so strange and out of place, this ordinary human in the middle of such an extraordinary bunch of people and yet it works. These men who could fell the world with a single blow soften under her gaze, respond to her every command, never question her, never doubt her and for a moment he wonders if maybe that is her purpose, that is her destiny to lead them into Battle as their General.

The moment he thinks this he can see it clearly in his mind's eye. A picture, a snapshot really of her standing in the middle of a battle field. Her face is strong, her features set and oddly defiant, even as her clothes are drenched in blood and there is a soft glow about her, a white light that seems to outline her form, protecting her, warming her.

It's so vivid that Castiel wonders if perhaps it was not just his imagination, perhaps that was a glimpse into the future and he decides then and there that if it was, he would follow her orders, follow her into the depths of hell if she so commanded him. But even with his conviction, it scares him how fiercely loyal he has become to someone he's never met, a human to whom he's never even so much as uttered a word to.

**July 16, 2009**

He has been watching her for a month now and he's noticed something.

There are parts of her that are broken, damaged inside in ways that might be beyond repair and amazingly enough-as surrounded as she is constantly by so many people, so many extraordinary people, he thinks he might be the only one who can see this. The only one who even knows.

It helps that by virtue of stalking her, because that's what he's doing, he's privy to private moments. When she drops all her barriers, releases all the walls she spends all day holding up. She reminds him of Atlas, struggling with the weight of the world on her shoulders and sometimes she collapses under the strain. When the place is empty, after hours of sitting at her computer alone in the dark it will come on suddenly and she leans over, sucking in air as if it's trying to escape, as if the universe has decided that she's only allowed half the oxygen that she had before, as if she's drowning in the middle of dry land.

Sometimes it's only for minutes, sometimes it's for hours and every time it tears something inside of Castiel as he watches and he finds himself wanting to reach out and take the weight from her. If only to give her a reprieve, if only for a second. He hates that feeling because he doesn't fully understand it, doesn't recognize it or know what to do with it. Sometimes it's too much for even him to bear and those times he leaves, he has to, unable to bear to witness it a moment longer. It's as though he's the one who's suffocating which is ridiculous because technically, he doesn't even need to breathe. So he goes and he finds the Winchesters and they hunt down a group of demons and he can breathe again for a while.

**August 30, 2009**

It's only been two months since Castiel found her, since he realized that she was important. Two months since he started watching her, before the first demons attack. He doesn't know how they found her, how they knew, he doesn't even know if they know. Demons are attracted to power and there's the slightest possibility that they singled Chloe out for that reason alone and that they have no idea who she is. He still has no idea who she is, but Castiel can't take that chance.

He finds them in the alley behind the Watchtower late one night. He kills the first one swiftly and without pause sliding the knife that he'd taken from Sam and Dean neatly into the man's rib cage and watches with fascination as the demon dies with a flash of light and the human body soon follows. The second one is not so easy. He no longer has the element of surprise and the knife is knocked from his hand before he can even turn to face the woman whose body is being occupied.

"Castiel, my my my, what's the Winchester's lap dog doing here?" She smirks and Castiel growls at her, partly because he definitely does not like being called the Winchester's lap dog and partly because he was right, they don't know about Chloe. But now they know there's something to know, they'll question why he's here and that means he can't let her get away.

He grabs her wrist when she comes in for a punch, twisting it behind her back and shoving her into the wall. She slides out of his grasp and her eyes flash black as she shoves him to the other side of the alley.

"Last I heard you were on a quest to find God." She flicks her wrist and the dumpster at the end of the alley flies toward him. Castiel jumps up and out of the way just as it slams uselessly into the side of the building. "I hear there's been a sighting in Memphis, or no wait, that was Elvis. I always get those two mixed up."

Castiel hits her then grabs her by the hair and hauls her to her feet.

"What's so important about Metropolis then?" she asks, sneaking her tongue out to lick at the blood dripping from her lip. Her eyes light up and she laughs. "The girl? The one who disappears?"

Castiel can't help the flinch, giving away far too much.

"I knew there was something about her, I just didn't know what. Well this certainly changes my plans for the evening."

"I'm afraid it cancels your plans," Castiel corrects her and holds out his hand. The knife flies through the air and into his palm but just as he places it on the girl's throat she winks at him. Her eyes flow from black to the more human green and of all things, are suddenly portraying fear. They start to water with tears and Castiel falters.

"Please, please don't kill me," the girl pleads. Her legs wobble and she sinks to her knees. "Please," she begs again as the tears begin to fall and Castiel is now utterly confused.

An arrow passes by so close to his face that he can feel it disrupt the air around him. It grazes the side of his cheek, slicing open his skin with razor fine accuracy, dripping warm blood down his face and Castiel can honestly say that he never even saw it coming. It's a strange feeling knowing that someone has managed to sneak up on him. He could remove the arrow and its owner with a twitch of his eye, with less but he doesn't because he's curious.

"Put the knife down," the man says, his voice distorted by the device attached to his throat but Castiel knows who he really is. "Let the woman go."

"I cannot do that," Castiel says.

"Please, he killed my husband," the woman sobs. "He's crazy, he just attacked us."

"I will shoot you."

Castiel hears the man load another arrow into his weapon. Castiel sighs. He knows what this looks like to the casual observer. He's holding a sobbing frightened woman by her hair, a knife to her throat as the body of a dead man lies in a pool of rapidly spreading blood further down the alley. "I know."

"You've been watching Chloe. This place. For months." The voice is closer now and Castiel risks a quick glance to the side to see the Green Arrow slowly making his way toward them. "Why?"

"To protect her." Castiel grits his teeth, now the demons have her name.

"Protect her from what?" he asks.

"This." Castiel makes a move to slit the woman's throat. The arrow that is loosed only a fraction of a second later freezes in mid air, an inch from Castiel's heart.

"Fuck," The Green Arrow says but he's not looking at the floating arrow, his attention is turned to the girl in Castiel's grip, more acutely his attention is affixed to the large black column of smoke that is pouring from her mouth and into the air.

"Well put," Castiel says and The Green Arrow turns his attention back to the angel.

"Care to explain?" The Green Arrow asks as the woman's body falls to the ground, empty, dead.

"A demon." Castiel looks across the sky and makes a move to leave. The Green Arrow raises the weapon in the air and Castiel sighs. "You know that is useless by now surely," he points out.

Castiel could take the crossbow away from him, he could overpower the man without a thought but he doesn't because the Green Arrow could turn out to be useful.

"She knows too much. She knows about Chloe. I have to find her and stop her before she has a chance to tell someone. If I don't there will be a legion of them here before tomorrow morning and neither you, nor I can protect her from that." The Green Arrow falters slightly and Castiel steps forward. "I am not your enemy Oliver Queen."

"Fuck," Oliver says again and lowers the crossbow. Before he can ask anymore Castiel is gone. Oliver is alone in the alley with two dead bodies and no idea what just happened. He pulls his glasses off and slips the hood down. "Double fuck."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Oliver sits at Chloe's desk and looks once more to the door that leads to her bedroom. The light is off now and he resists the urge sneak up the stairs and check on her, to drag a chair to the side of her bed and watch her while she sleeps. He hasn't let her out of his sight since the incident in the alley. He almost didn't allow her to go to bed but she looked exhausted and he honestly couldn't come up with one plausible reason to keep her awake.

He didn't think she'd believe him for one second if he told her that he'd noticed that some guy had been watching the Watchtower for months. He didn't think she'd believe him if he told her that the guy, who could stop arrows in mid air was hunting down what he called a demon. Oliver was still having a hard time believing that one himself, but based on the fancy show with the smoke earlier he was inclined to believe that's exactly what it was.

"Where is she?"

Oliver spins around in his chair and is on his feet in seconds. He relaxes, but only slightly when he sees the man from the alley standing inside the door. "How did you get in here?"

"Where is she?" he asks again.

"She's asleep," Oliver says. "Who are you?"

"My name is Castiel," he explains.

"What are you?" Oliver asks this time, knowing that it's likely the more pertinent question.

Castiel hesitates briefly before deciding that he can trust this man. "I am an angel of the Lord," he says with an impassive expression and Oliver looks as if he's about to laugh or call "bullshit" so Castiel shows his wings, stopping any further protest in its tracks.

Oliver swallows. "The girl…the demon…thing?" He lets the question hang in the air.

Castiel absentmindedly wipes blood from his brow that is threatening to fall into his eye. "Taken care of."

"You killed her?" Oliver asks, wondering how one went about killing a demon.

"Yes, before she could talk to anyone else." Castiel's eyes are fixated on the door to Chloe's bedroom and Oliver follows his gaze.

"She's fine," Oliver says softly.

"I can't tell." There is a frown on Castiel's face. "I can't see her."

Oliver wants to say that neither of them can see her because the door is closed and they can't see through walls. He doesn't only because he's not sure the angel would get the sarcasm and because for all he knows angels can see through walls. Either way he doesn't think Castiel means that he can't see her physically. "Why are they after her?"

"I need you to do something for me." Castiel ignores the question because he honestly has no answer at the moment.

"Yeah well, I need to know what's going on." Oliver crosses his arms, anger now replacing the gratefulness he felt earlier.

Castiel makes a move to protest but stops himself. "Oh I see." He turns to Oliver. "We are bartering here. I will tell you everything you need to know." The look on Oliver's face tells him that's not nearly good enough. "Okay, I will tell you everything I know, but I need you to do something for me first."

"OK." Oliver accepts the terms.

"Can you get her to a hospital?" Castiel asks him.

"Is she sick?" Oliver blanches.

"No." Castiel shakes his head. "I need an x-ray."

"You need an x-ray?" Oliver frowns confused. "Of Chloe?"

"Full body, if possible." Castiel nods. "The fate of the world could depend on this."

"On an x-ray?" he asks and Castiel simply nods once more. Oliver wants to laugh. He wants to laugh and demand that everyone come out of hiding because obviously this is all one really big joke, Oliver's on Candid Camera, because you just can't possibly make this stuff up. One look at Castiel's face though, and the memory of the dead bodies in the alley, tell Oliver that this is the farthest thing from a joke. "Yeah, I can get an x-ray done."

"Call me when you have them." Castiel hands Oliver a piece of paper with a phone number on it. With one final look at the door to Chloe's bedroom he disappears again before Oliver can ask him why angels need cell phones.

**September 2, 2009**

In the end it's a lot easier to get Chloe to give him an x-ray than he thought it would be. He walks into the Watchtower the next day and tells her that Emil needs to do a full body x-ray for her medical files and she shrugs and says she'll make an appointment and that's that. He realizes then how much Chloe trusts him, and he feels guilty for betraying that trust but then he remembers the demons and he can handle that guilt, carry it with him until the day he dies if it keeps Chloe safe.

Two days later Oliver finds himself staring at the envelope of x-ray films sitting on his coffee table as the rest of his team paces the room behind him.

"I don't like this," Bart says for the fifth time and Oliver rubs his temples. "I don't like having secret meetings without Chloe, _about_ Chloe." He looks over at his fearless leader with an almost mutinous expression on his face.

"Will you just trust me?" he begs Bart.

Emil had been confused as to why they were subjecting Chloe to a full body x-ray at first but followed Oliver's orders. Afterward, when they stood shoulder to shoulder staring at the results and the most brilliant doctor that Oliver had ever known admitted to having no plausible explanation for what they were seeing, he may have slightly panicked.

Whatever this is, he has a gut feeling that it's bigger than him, bigger than all of them and to protect Chloe, they need all the help they can get. So before he'd called Castiel, he assembled his team, sans Chloe, and just hoped he was doing the right thing.

"Do you have them?" Castiel asks from the other side of the table and Oliver congratulates himself silently for not flinching at the sudden appearance. He is the only one however. He hadn't warned the others, hadn't known what to tell them about Castiel and figured that without proof, telling them that he was an angel would only get him grief. They needed to see it; they needed to believe it for themselves.

"Right here." Oliver slides the envelope across the table to the angel who pulls out the films and walks over to the window.

All at once, everyone demands to know who this guy is, how he just showed up in the middle of the room and what exactly they were doing there. Oliver ignores all of it and instead makes his way over to Castiel who is studying the x-rays intently through the sunlight. The others slowly follow Oliver's lead and one by one fall silent as they see what he sees.

"What are these?" Victor steps closer to get a better look.

"Chloe's x-ray." Oliver spares him a glance.

"Why did someone write all over them?" Bart asks confused studying the weird symbols that cover every inch of white on the films.

"That's not on the x-ray." Oliver turns to Castiel. "Is it?"

"No." He shakes his head.

"Wait, is that, are those things on her bones?" AC blanches.

"Yes."

"Why would someone write on her bones?" Bart asks still slightly confused. "How would someone write on her bones?"

"It is not written." Castiel pulls the films away from the light and slides them back in the envelope. "It is carved."

"Carved?" Victor raises his eyebrows at Oliver. "Someone carved symbols into Chloe's bones?" Victor pauses at the look on Oliver's face. "She doesn't know does she?"

"No," Oliver admits, "she doesn't." Everyone is quiet while they process this.

"Right," Victor says first and sits down heavily, "perhaps you should start at the beginning."

Oliver turns to Castiel because he doesn't know where the beginning is. "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth," Castiel says.

"I didn't mean the actual beginning," Victor mumbles and Oliver shoots him a look that says, _'pay attention, this is important'_ so Victor shuts up and listens to the story.

"God then created the angels. First Michael, then Lucifer," Castiel tells them.

"Wait, Lucifer as in Satan?" Bart interrupts. "He was an angel?"

"He was the most beautiful angel," Castiel goes on. "And then God created you, humans, and He asked us to bow down to you, He wanted us to place you above all, even Him. Lucifer refused and he was banished. In retaliation for being cast out of Heaven, Lucifer created the first demon, Lilith. He made her from one of the humans that God loved so much. As punishment God sent down Michael, who cast his brother into hell, binding him there under the weight of 600 seals, and there he stayed, rotting away until a few months ago."

Victor turns to his boss, his friend, disbelief etched on his face and what he sees there makes his blood run cold. Oliver is not looking incredulous, he's not looking at Castiel as if he's just escaped from some loony bin, he's looking at him with interest, with intent, and not a small amount of fear.

"You said _'us'_." Dinah speaks for the first time, weighing her words very carefully. "And you said _'humans'_ in a way that makes me think you aren't one." Castiel simply stares at her willing her to say it, because if she says it, if she's the one to come to the conclusion, rather than Castiel having to tell her, it's better. "You're an angel."

Bart scoffs and Castiel offers a curt nod. "You don't seriously expect us to believe—" Castiel unfurls his wings then and any further protest from any of them is cut off completely.

"What happened a few months ago?" Oliver asks, guiding the story back on track.

"The last seal was broken, starting the End of Days and freeing Lucifer to walk the Earth once more," Castiel tells them.

"End of Days as in Apocalypse?" Bart asks, his voice registering at an eerily high pitch. "As in the End of the World?"

"Yes." Castiel nods.

"Right, cause this is my life now." Bart shakes his head in astonishment.

"How did someone break 600 seals?" Dinah asks confused. "How did you allow them to break 600 seals?"

"Only 66 of the seals had to be broken to free Lucifer, 66 out of 600," Castiel defends himself and the efforts of his brothers and sisters to the human, even though it pains him to do so. "There was only so much that we could do once everything had been set in motion. Once the first seal was broken, we could not stop it."

"But there are a hundred million of you; you're telling me a hundred million angels couldn't stop 66 seals from breaking?" AC protests and Castiel looks at him confused. "Revelations 5:11, _'Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand'._ That's a hundred million."

"Dude, how do you know that?" Bart stares at AC as if he's never seen him before.

"I go to church," AC brushes him off.

Castiel hesitates briefly, this is the part that he's dreading. He needs these people, needs them to believe in him, needs them to trust him and this could endanger that. "Some of the angels allowed it to happen," he says shocking them all but he notices, not completely losing them. He moves on, quickly explaining how it was a part of their plan, to let Lucifer free, to start the apocalypse so that they could purge the world of the scum that was humanity, wipe them from existence and salt the earth to start over again.

"Where is God in all this?" Dinah asks. Her voice is shaken and she hugs her arms to her chest in an attempt to warm herself from the sudden chill she has. "How can he simply allow all this to happen?"

"God is missing," Castiel tells them, dropping the final bomb.

"Well that's just…" Bart exhales slowly. "Awesome."

"He's missing?" Victor snorts this whole thing just too utterly ridiculous to handle at the moment. "How does God go missing?"

"I don't know," Castiel says. "I have been searching for Him. I was searching for Him and instead I found Chloe."

"What does she have to do with any of this?" Oliver finally asks the question he's been dying to ask for days now.

"I don't know. I just know that she is important, that she is integral to stopping this, to stopping Lucifer," Castiel tells him and he prays that Oliver doesn't ask him to explain how he knows that because he can't. Because he doesn't even understand it himself.

"But…how?" Bart's question is desperate.

"I can see you," Castiel tries to explain it to them. "Humans, I mean. I can see all of you, I can see into your hearts, into your souls. I can find you anywhere, at any time if I want to. I can close my eyes and reach out and I know where you are. I know who you are. I can feel the heartbeat of every single human on the planet." Castiel absently brings a hand up to his chest and rubs the spot where Jimmy's heart used to beat. "Except for Chloe."

"You can't feel Chloe?" Oliver frowns.

"The symbols carved into her bones are ancient. They are used to hide someone from the angels. It hides her from me," Castiel explains. "Unless she is standing right in front of me, I cannot see her; it is like she has disappeared from existence."

Oliver now understands what Castiel meant when he said he couldn't see her.

"I have used them before, to hide people from other angels, but I have only ever put them on the ribs. Chloe's are all over her body and for some reason they don't just hide her from the angels, they hide her from demons as well."

"Who put them there?" Oliver asks.

"I don't know." Castiel shakes his head.

"But you have a theory?" Oliver presses him.

"God," Castiel admits.

"Why would God want to hide Chloe from the angels and the demons?" AC asks.

"He is the only one who could have done that, who could have hidden her that well and I don't know why He did it and at the moment that doesn't matter. What matters is that He did do it, and for that reason and that reason alone it makes her a target. If God went through the trouble of hiding her, at some point, even if they don't know why, they are going to work twice as hard to find her."

"So by trying to protect her, he made her a walking target?" Oliver sighs.

"Yes."

"Well that seems slightly counterproductive." Victor snorts and it eases the tension slightly as the others relax and then laugh at the absurdity of the whole situation. Even Castiel allows himself a small smile.

"So what do we do?" Oliver asks him. "If Heaven and Hell are both after Chloe, how can we hope to keep her safe?"

"You will not," Castiel tells him sadly. "I will."

**September 2, 2009**

"I got you a present." Oliver walks into the Watchtower the next day and tosses his jacket onto his regular chair. Chloe lifts her head up from the screen.

"Is it a pony?" She feigns excitement and Oliver snorts, plopping himself down in the chair and putting his feet up on the table. It's a game they play every time Oliver gets something for her. She asks for a pony and then pretends to be disappointed when it inevitably turns out _not _to be a pony. "Please let it be a pony." She crosses her fingers and closes her eyes and Oliver falters for a second.

He likes that even after everything that's happened in the past few days, after everything that he's learned; he still gets to have this. He gets to have innocent and carefree Chloe, the one who doesn't know that she's the integral player in the rapidly approaching apocalypse. After she lost Jimmy, it took him a long time and a lot of hard work to get her to this point. To get her back to the person who smiles and snarks at him. It took him a lot longer than he would have liked to coax out the girl he knew before, the one with the easy smiles and friendly laughter and he's not going to lose her now, not like this. He decides right here and now that he's not going to tell her.

He had every intention of walking in the room and sitting her down and explaining everything to her calmly and rationally. He has the speech all planned out, he was going to be comforting and reassuring and let her know that no matter what he has no plans to let anything happen to her, that they'll get through this together. But now that he's faced with the prospect of being the person who puts that look back in her eyes, that haunted heavy look that broke his heart every time she turned her gaze on him for the better part of a year, he just can't bring himself to do it.

"I'm going to name him Fitzwilliam and I'll brush his mane every day and we'll be the best of friends." Chloe's eyes are sparkling and Oliver just shakes his head.

"One day I'm going to buy you a pony and then what are you going to do?" he asks reaching forward to grab her coffee and take a sip.

She smacks his feet off her desk and takes the coffee back from him, getting up to go into the kitchen and pour him his own cup.

It also took a long time for _them_ to get to this point, to this place where they can be completely at ease with each other, where they can joke and relax and just be. There was a lot of trust that had to be rebuilt from the ground up on both sides. Oliver knows that his decision to keep this from her brings with it the likelihood that if the shit ever does hit the fan, all the trust, the relationship that they've managed to painstakingly build brick by brick, will crumble and fall down around him in an instant. He thinks that he can probably manage to live with that; live with the possibility of Chloe never speaking to him again, if it means that she is safe and happy in the here and now.

"It's not a pony," Oliver tells her when she sets his cup of coffee down in front of him. "It's better than a pony."

"What's better than a pony?" Chloe snorts and then her eyes widen. "Except two ponies."

"What would you do with two ponies?" Oliver shakes his head at her amused. "I got you an assistant." Oliver sips his coffee.

Chloe just stares at him for a second. "You got me a what now?" she asks him hoping beyond hope that she's misheard him or has possibly gone insane in the last ten seconds.

"An assistant," Oliver repeats with an all too satisfied smirk on his face.

"What exactly in over the four years we've worked together, would make you think that I could possibly need or want an assistant?" Chloe hopes she looks menacing with her hands on her hips. She's using her best annoyed voice which usually has the effect of soliciting an unwarranted confession from Bart and AC but at the moment seems to be useless against Oliver. She raises her eyebrow for an added measure of '_tell me now and I won't be too terribly angry'_. That's generally how she manages to pry things from Victor but it seems, for the moment at least, that Oliver is immune to all of it, which does not bode well for Chloe.

"Nothing." Oliver shrugs. "I just thought…"

"Have I been slacking off?" Chloe tilts her head, going for righteous indignation. "Have I missed something, overlooked something that might indicate to you I can't handle my job and that I am in need of assistance?"

"I didn't say that." Oliver back peddles fast, realizing he maybe should have thought this through a little better.

"You got me an assistant, whose job, by very definition, is to assist," Chloe points out to him. "Ergo you think that I need assistance."

"Wait a minute." Oliver holds up his hands in supplication. "You can do this job with your hands tied behind your back. In fact, you have done this job with your hands tied behind your back," he reminds her and she smirks at him. "You take care of us, Chloe. All of us in the field and off it and you do it 24-hours a day and you never complain and I know that you never will. You work too hard, you know this and I know this and we both know that you will never admit to that out loud. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to take my present in the spirit that it was intended, quit complaining and get used to the idea that sometimes I'm going to take care of you."

Chloe slowly allows her arms to uncross and hang limply at her side. "This assistant?" she finally says.

"Cass," Oliver tells her.

"Cass." Chloe nods slowly. "Does he have any special skills?"

"Like…what?" Oliver asks her confused.

"Ollie, this isn't a doctor's office." She rolls her eyes at him. "I don't care how many words he can type a minute or if he knows how to file. We're sort of a specialized agency here. Does he have any special skills that might come in handy?"

"Oh!" Oliver understands and smiles sheepishly. "You mean does he have any abilities?" Chloe somehow manages to make a nod sarcastic. "He's got some skills."

"Trial basis?" she asks and Oliver nods. Chloe thinks this over for a while then looks down at the cup in her hand. "How is he at making coffee?"

"Great. Best coffee I've ever had," Oliver says desperately.

"OK then, set it up." Chloe walks away and Oliver pulls out his phone and dials a number.

"Hey, there's been a change in plans." Oliver runs his fingers through his hair, pulling at it slightly. "How are you at making coffee?" When he hears the answer he bites his lip and resists the urge to curse, he doesn't need to draw Chloe's attention to him. "Don't worry, we'll work on it."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**September 2, 2010**

"So to recap. You're an angel, which you've been lying to me about for the better part of six months. The other angels, we'll go ahead and call them the bad ones, assisted the demons in bringing about the rise of Lucifer and starting the End of the World. For some reason I'm being hidden from the both the angels and the demons and you have no idea why but it seems they both want me dead and you think I'm the key to stopping this whole thing but you don't know how or why." Chloe takes a breath as Castiel nods. "On top of all of this, in the middle of this clusterfuck that has become my life, God has gone AWOL?"

"Some of them think God is dead," Castiel explains to her in the vein of full disclosure. "The other angels and the demons. They think He is dead, or that He has given up, that He has abandoned us."

"What do you think?" Chloe asks him tilting her head.

"I think He is…I am not sure exactly." Castiel frowns in annoyance. "I know He is not dead."

"But you think He's abandoned you?" Chloe instinctively reaches for her crucifix. Her hand instead encounters the cool smooth crystal that she wears now in its place. As a nervous habit she slides it back and forth on the chain.

"I…no." Castiel shakes his head.

"Why not?" Chloe asks him earnestly, honestly. "From what I've heard I'm inclined to believe everyone else. Why else would he let things get this far? It's the end of the world; the wolves are at the gates. So either he's dead or he's twiddling his thumbs, bidding his time, waiting with a bowl of hot buttered popcorn to see how the end of the movie turns out."

"No," Castiel says with more conviction than Chloe has ever heard him use. "I don't believe that."

"Why not?" she presses him. She needs to know why he doesn't believe it; she needs to know so that maybe she can believe it too.

"Because I have faith," he says. His answer is simple and elegant and absolutely no help at all. Faith is not something you can convince someone else to have. Chloe is slightly disappointed and it obviously shows on her face. "I believe that He is still alive, that He still cares."

"Then where is he?" Chloe asks.

"I don't know." Castiel stands up and backs away from the table.

"But you have a theory?" She gets up and walks over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He nods once hesitantly. "What is it?"

"I believe that He is alive, that He is here."

"Then why hasn't he done anything?" Chloe is begging now for an answer.

"Because it is possible that he's not exactly God at the moment," Castiel finally tells her.

"Wait a minute." Dean holds up a hand. "He can just do that? He can just stop being God?"

"There are stories, of times before. God wishes to experience the world instead of simply observing it, so He comes down to earth and He lives, for a time, as a human," Castiel says.

"Let me get this straight. God is walking around somewhere in a meat suit?" Dean scoffs.

"Not exactly." Castiel cringes at the implication. "An angel can slip into certain worthy vessels, vessels that are pre-determined, special. Vessels that have the ability to contain our true selves and our powers but God's power is far too great for just any vessel."

"Wait." Chloe looks at him desperately. "You don't think…I mean obviously I'm not the vessel."

Dean perks up a little at this, it makes sense to him. He has this feeling, somewhere, deep down in the pit of his stomach that there is something different about Chloe. If she is the vessel then they're one step closer to winning this thing, from it being all over. They just have to figure out a way to get God out of Chloe's body and back where he belongs and they can all go back to their regularly scheduled programs. Dean almost breathes a sigh of relief.

When Castiel doesn't say anything, Chloe swallows hard and sucks in a breath through her teeth, her fingers gripping the edge of the table so hard that her knuckles turn white. "I'm not the vessel, am I?" She sounds so small and desperate that in two seconds Dean has completely changed his mind and he no longer wants her to be the vessel. In fact he wants her as far away from this place and this whole situation as possible.

Dean uses this opportunity to study Chloe, to really study her. Like Castiel said upon first glance there is nothing remarkable about her. The top of her head barely comes to his chin and she looks like a strong wind could knock her over. When Dean first saw her, when he pulled her out of the rubble, she looked fragile and lost and he'd felt the overwhelming urge to protect her, to wrap her up in cotton and tuck her away where she'd be safe. Two seconds later when she took off straight into the middle of a war zone, Dean still wanted to protect her but he'd amended _"wrapping her in cotton"_ to _"suiting her up in armor"_.

It didn't take long to see that she was in fact remarkable, in ways Dean never even imagined. It wasn't her secret room full of cool gadgets, or the way she went all take charge earlier. It isn't even the fact that she somehow manages to quiet an entire room of super powered bad asses with a single look (But that is pretty awesome and kinda hot).

"I don't think so." Castiel shakes his head and Dean watches as the blood flows back into her knuckles, as she lets out a breath and her entire body sags with a relief that's so bone deep even Dean can feel it. "No matter how special it is, the vessel, the body would burn up from the inside out in less than a day. He must create a vessel, a special one, and then to become a human, God must cease being God." He lets the full implication of that set in with everyone.

"So there's someone, some random person out there, among the billions of people on this planet, walking around, who is God, but doesn't know it?" Sam asks.

"I think so." Castiel nods.

"Well this just turned into the most important game of _Where's Waldo_ ever," Dean snorts and drops into a chair. "Even if we manage to find this person, what happens then? What do we do? Like anyone's going to believe us if we tell them they're actually God and they need to get back up to heaven and stop the apocalypse."

"I think that is where Chloe comes in. God is, in a sense, broken, hurt," Castiel explains. "He needs to be fixed." He looks straight at Chloe. "He needs to be healed."

Chloe and Castiel simply stare at one another for a while, a silent argument passing between the two of them and Dean can see Chloe getting more and more frustrated the longer it goes on. "No," she says to him, her voice raw with pent up emotion and he simply nods in the affirmative challenging her. "I told you…" She doesn't finish the sentence, or she can't finish the sentence.

"Chloe-" Castiel starts to protest and her fingers clench into a fist and aim for his jaw before she can think. She never connects. Castiel's hand shoots out lightening fast and grabs her wrist before she can follow through. Chloe looks at Castiel's fingers digging into her wrist, holding her in place, stopping her from moving. She pushes against him and he pushes back.

He steps closer and she steps back, seemingly in surrender, so he drops her wrist and backs off slightly. He opens his mouth again but this time it's Oliver who cuts him off.

"When did you get your powers back?" His question is nothing more than a whisper but the accusation behind it is louder than if he'd yelled. The look in his eyes asks sadly, _you've been keeping something from me? I thought we were past that._

"I don't have my powers back." She bites her lip. It's not an outright lie. "Not really," she admits and Oliver hangs his head.

"You healed me," Castiel reminds her.

"It was a fluke, a one-time thing and it hasn't happened again." Chloe's protests are directed at her team who is now staring at her with hurt and confusion. "He cut himself on a piece of glass. I wasn't even trying. I was just going to clean it, bandage it and then…it was a fluke." She's practically begging for them to believe her.

"You should have told me," Oliver insists. "We could have gone to Emil, run some tests."

"I didn't want any tests; I didn't want them to be back," Chloe argues.

"I need to know these things Chloe; you can't just keep stuff like that from me, that's not what we do anymore," Oliver continues ignoring, her outburst.

"Are you mad that I kept it from you?" she snaps. "Or are you mad that I kept it from you and you couldn't use me? Who cares about being careful on missions when you've got your very own get-out-of-death-free card back at the Watchtower right?"

Oliver couldn't have looked more hurt if Chloe had slapped him again. She senses that she's taken it a bit too far and her eyes go wide. "That was way out of line," Oliver says surprisingly calm.

"I know," she whispers to him. "Sorry." He just nods and Bart, sensing a change of topic is in order, jumps in with the assist.

"So what's the plan now?" He looks between Chloe, Oliver and Castiel. "What do we do?"

Castiel tears his gaze from Chloe and looks at Bart. "You don't do anything. You have done your part and I am grateful, but your assistance is no longer required."

Chloe's team just stares at the angel as if he's literally sprouted wings or grown a second head.

"Like hell." Victor is the first to vocalize what the rest of them are thinking. "Do you really expect us to just walk away, to leave her here with you?"

"Yes," Castiel answers confused, unsure what the problem is.

That's when the screaming starts. Victor, Bart, AC, Dinah, and Oliver all yelling at Castiel.

"What did you think we built this place for?" Castiel asks Oliver gesturing around them at the house they are in. "For Chloe, to keep her safe."

"We can keep her safe," Oliver protests. "That's sort of what we do."

"Where would you take her?" Castiel asks him. "She can't go back home, not to Metropolis, we made sure of that."

Chloe stiffens at his words but Oliver doesn't even flinch. "I'll take her to Gotham, I know a guy," Oliver counters.

"Why can't I go home?" Chloe asks loudly halting all arguments.

Oliver runs a hand through his hair and sighs. "Because, Chloe Sullivan is dead. Officially, she died in the explosion at the Watchtower."

Chloe shakes her head, the completely surreal nature of the situation finally catching up with her. "No, you can't be serious."

"It is for the best," Castiel tells her. "They know who you are now. We needed you to disappear and when the opportunity presented itself, we used it to our advantage."

It's obvious now how much has changed while she slept. "So everyone thinks I'm dead? Lois, Clark, everyone?"

"It's better this way." Oliver tries to appease her.

"No, no way." Chloe shakes her head. "No way Lois believes that without a body. No way she…No." She shakes off the comforting hand Oliver is trying to offer her and glares at him.

"There is a body," Castiel says. "The woman, the one you…" He doesn't say it but Chloe knows who he's talking about, the girl she killed, the crazy redhead. "I made her look like you; she is identical in every aspect. She is even wearing your favorite green shirt."

"You just thought of everything didn't you?" Chloe scoffs.

"We did what we needed to do to protect you," Oliver reminds her.

"No, it's fine, I get it." She backs away. "Why don't you all continue on with planning the rest of my life for me? I'll just get out of your hair." She turns away from them and walks off. The room then erupts with multiple versions of, "Now look what you've done!" And they dissolve into arguments again.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

After forty-five minutes of completely counter-productive screaming, Dean decides it's time for some action. He walks past Oliver who is threatening Castiel with something to do with an Island. He opens the fridge and gets the sense that Castiel had imagined that they'd stay there for a while because he notices it's well stocked with food and essentials and even Dean's favorite beer. Smiling, Dean grabs two bottles, fills a rag with a handful of ice from the freezer and makes his way once again past the others who are still screaming.

"Starting the party early?" Sam looks up from the books that he escaped into thirty minutes into the vocal feud, no doubt trying to find a manual on looking for God as a human. He nods to the beers in Dean's hand.

Dean simply offers his brother a soft glare in return. "Where's Chloe?"

"Saw her go upstairs about thirty minutes ago." Sam shrugs and goes back to his research.

Dean takes the steps two at a time and finds her in the last room on the left, or more accurately just outside the last room on the left. She is lying on the slant of the roof, her head resting on her hands, her eyes closed as a stiff breeze blows the edges of her hair into her mouth. She looks more peaceful now than he's ever seen her, he almost hates to ruin it.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_"It's a dump," Chloe argues as she brings the two ends of the towel together._

_"It's not a dump." Jimmy laughs at the vehemence in her voice. He sorts through the socks, trying to find pairs._

_"The place is falling apart." She folds the towel over once then twice and sets it on the counter. _

_Jimmy drops a bundle of socks into the laundry basket and shakes his head at her. "If you really believed that, you wouldn't have climbed out onto the roof." _

_Chloe tosses him a bed sheet and he starts to fold it. She's not sure why but whenever her mind chooses to visit with Jimmy they're always doing something normal, like sleeping or watching TV or doing laundry. Possibly because they really never got to do those normal everyday things when he was alive. "I don't trust him." _

_"Who, Dean?" Jimmy asks, struggling with the large sheet and Chloe takes pity on him, grabbing the other end and folding it. _

_Chloe pauses. Strangely enough she actually trusts Dean, even after having only met the guy a few hours ago. "No. Cass." _

_"Now I know that's a lie." Jimmy laughs as they finish with the sheet and move on to more towels. _

_"He lied to me." _

_"You lie to everyone," Jimmy reminds her and she does. She lies everyday when they ask her if she's okay, she lies to her dad, she lies to Lois. "You lied to me." _

_"No fair." Chloe sits down on the couch. "I hate him."_

_"You're mad at him." Jimmy sits down next to her. "You're pissed that he lied to you, you're pissed that you trusted him, but most of all you're pissed that you didn't figure it out on your own." _

_Chloe groans and buries her head in the pillow. "I want to go home." _

_"You can't." Jimmy pulls the pillow away from her face. "Regardless of what you feel for Cass right now, you know, deep down you know that he can protect you. That he'd do anything to keep you safe." She tries to turn away from him but he grabs her chin and doesn't let her. "You know that Cass, Dean and Sam can do this, and do it better than Oliver. They can help you figure this out; they can help you end it." _

_"So you think I should stay with them?" Chloe asks. _

_"I think you already know what you need to do." He kisses her lips softly then climbs off the couch and walks to the fridge. "And don't be so hard on Cass. Just imagine what he's been going through these past six months." _

_Chloe remembers the crushed look on his face, his admission that he hated lying to her. _

_"Come on, let's stay in tonight." Jimmy opens the fridge. "I've got beer." _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Chloe!" She opens her eyes and turns her head to see Dean leaning out the window, an amused smile on his face. "I've got beer." He holds out the two bottles as proof but still she doesn't respond. "Scoot over," Dean calls to her, half in and half out of the window. Chloe sits up slowly and moves across a few feet so Dean can sit down next to her.

"They send you out to collect me?" she asks, pulling her knees up and hugging them to her chest.

"No, they're still fighting." Dean passes her a beer and she takes it absently. "Oliver's threatening to buy an island and strand you on it rather than leave you here with us."

"Sounds like Oliver," Chloe snorts and sips the beer.

"He's a little high strung when it comes to you," Dean acknowledges. "Are you two…" He lets the implication hang in the air.

Chloe chuckles a bit. "No." She shakes her head. "We're just really good friends." Dean raises his eyebrows. "He can get a little overprotective at times but we've been through a lot together. We've had to pull each other out of some pretty deep holes."

"I know how that goes," Dean says and Chloe instantly thinks of Sam and what Dean went through just to get his brother back.

She lifts the bottle to her lips again and Dean can't help but stare at the angry red marks in the shape of Castiel's fingers on her wrist. Her skin is so pale and the welts so red they stand out. "They don't hurt," Chloe says and Dean knows he's been caught staring. She sets the beer on the roof and rubs her wrist lightly. "It looks bad but they don't hurt. He had to do it, I was…" She drops her hand and stretches her fingers, wincing as the raw cut on her knuckle opens into the chilly night air. "Now that hurts," she says. "It's been a while since I hit someone, I forgot."

"Here." Dean grabs her hand and softly lays the bag of ice over her knuckles.

"Thanks." Chloe takes her hand back and presses the ice pack on harder.

"Can't you just…" Dean waves his hand randomly and Chloe tries hard to hold back her smile. "I mean they said you could heal things, can't you just fix it?"

"I can't heal things." Chloe frowns. "I used to be able to heal things, but I could never heal my own injuries."

"You sure about that?" Dean frowns at her. "Because when I pulled you out of the rubble you had some serious cuts and bruises but now, they're practically gone." Chloe makes a mental note to check herself out in a mirror. She probably looks atrocious. "So how does that work exactly? Some kind of hoodoo magic?" Dean asks as he sips his beer.

"No," Chloe says, biting off the comment that magic isn't real because between that thing with Isobel and Lana in high school, Zantanna, and everything she's seen today, that statement's probably not going to hold much weight. "I lived in Smallville. In 1989, the town was hit by a meteor shower which left, among other things, tons of this stuff called Kryptonite. It was in the water, the soil, the people, and the livestock. Prolonged exposure to the meteor rock causes a molecular change in your DNA. For most people it results in some sort of ability-controlling fire, teleportation, the ability to walk through solid objects."

"And you, it gave you the ability to heal?" Dean asks intrigued.

"We're still not sure. My mom was affected by the shower. If she's holding something of yours, she can make you do things, anything." Chloe's voice is soft as she talks about this. "I didn't know until a few years ago. When she found out, she got scared, about what she could do, about what she might do, so she committed herself to an institution to keep me safe. There's a chance that I was also affected way back then, or that it just developed over the years I've been around the meteor rock in Smallville, but we don't know enough about it yet. All we know is that I have a very large deposit of Kryptonite around my heart and that I used to be able to heal…well not heal exactly; I could absorb other people's injuries and then heal them myself."

"But you can't anymore?"

"Not since-it's a long story." She shakes her head. "There was this thing, this alien virus that infected my brain and ever since we got it out, I haven't been able to use my power."

"Except on Cass," Dean reminds her.

"That was a fluke," Chloe insists again and Dean gets the distinct impression that she would very much like this discussion to be over. "So this thing is huge isn't it?" she asks Dean and he nods. "And you guys, you and Sam and Castiel? You guys can protect me better than Ollie?"

"Definitely," Dean says without hesitation.

"OK then." Chloe finishes the beer and stands up. She steps over Dean and climbs back through the window and he scrambles to follow her. She leads him back down the stairs without saying a word and stops in front of Castiel and Oliver who are still screaming at each other.

Sam smiles at Chloe sheepishly from the sidelines, trying to gauge whether or not he should jump in and Victor and AC are keeping a close eye on him ready to stop him if he tries.

"You come with me," Chloe says simply to Oliver and he stops mid-argument and turns to follow her without a single protest. "You four behave yourselves while we're gone," she calls over her shoulder to Dinah, Bart, AC, and Victor.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe drags Oliver past the kitchen and out the back door to the porch. There's a swing in the corner and she sits down, patting the spot next to her. "I'm gonna stay here," she says after he gets settled. "With Sam and Dean." She takes a deep breath. "And Castiel."

"Chloe, you don't have to, we can protect you," Oliver protests.

"You can, I know you can," she assures him. "But they can do it better. If some crazed meteor infected person was after me, you'd be the one I turned to, because that's what we do. Well this, this is what they do, so let them do what they do." When he doesn't respond she lays a hand on top of his to draw his attention to her. "The world may be ending Oliver, but it's not over yet. You've still got a job to do, people to save, people that have no idea that in two or six or eight months, we might not even be here anymore and you can't do that job if you're too worried about me."

"Yeah." It's hard for him to admit that she's right but she is.

"So you've been planning this a while?" When Oliver tries to protest Chloe cuts him off. "There's a closet full of my clothes and a freezer full of my coffee."

"Since Cass started working for you," Oliver admits.

"And you built this place?" Chloe recalls Cass' words.

"Not exactly." Oliver sighs. "We just modified it a bit. Vic installed top of the line security linked to Oracle's systems, Castiel did some angel magic and demon-proofed the whole place, I just bankrolled the thing." He twists his hand palm up and slides his fingers in between hers. "Sorry about hijacking your life here."

"Not much a life to hijack was it?" Chloe asks him truthfully. "I guess one prison's as good as another, well, except in the last one I had Wi-Fi."

Oliver laughs. "I'll get right on that."

They sit in silence for a few minutes just watching the sunset and then without saying a word, they stand up and walk back in the house. The team and Castiel are no longer fighting; they're just staring at each other in a very hostile manner.

"She's staying here," Oliver announces and all heads turn to him. They all look as if they're ready to protest but one glare from Oliver and all mouths shut practically in unison. Chloe says her goodbyes and walks them to the door.

"We could stay a few days," Oliver offers. "Until you get settled."

"Nah, you guys should head back, it's getting late and Lois, she's gonna need you now more than ever," Chloe points out.

**September 3, 2010**

"We just need you to identify the body, Miss Lane."

The officer has been nothing but kind and he speaks to Lois calmly and softly and yet she couldn't hate him more. It isn't his fault, but he is the man who is about to show her the dead body of her cousin, so he really never had a fighting chance. Lois feels Clark's hand on the small of her back and is amazed at how such a simple touch can make her feel so much better. "Miss Lane?" The officer looks at her concerned and she follows him into the room.

It's cold in the morgue and somehow that seems wrong to Lois. She knows logically the drawers must be cold but she never imagined the room itself would be cold. She shivers and Clark pulls her closer. They stop in front of a table. There's a body on it covered by a sheet. It looks about Chloe's height but Lois tells herself over and over that doesn't mean a thing.

She'd been out following a story when the explosion rocked downtown Metropolis. It took her a few minutes of gazing at the skyline until she registered that the Watchtower was missing. Her cousin's building, her home was simply gone. It took her less than five minute to get across town and she must have stood and stared at the smoking pile of rubble for an hour before she had the sense of mind to try calling Chloe. She tried every five minutes for the next six hours, convinced that any second Chloe would pick up but she never did. Then Lois got a call, from the Metropolis Police Department, asking her to come and identify a body. It took her another few hours before she worked up the courage to even come down here, and now that she's here, she knows that she's still not ready.

"I can't." Lois backs away from the table. "Clark, I can't do this." She turns around and sucks in a deep breath to keep the tears at bay.

"Can I do it?" Clark asks the young officer.

"Sorry, it has to be a family member." He shrugs helplessly.

"Lois." Clark grabs her shoulders and turns her around. "You have to do this. You need to know, the sooner the better." She doesn't look convinced. "I need to know," Clark tells her.

It isn't until that moment that Lois remembers Chloe is as much a part of Clark's family as she is a part of Lois'. She takes a deep breath and nods; she can do this for Clark, even if she can't do it for herself.

The officer pulls the sheet back and Lois sucks in a breath through her teeth, her fingers clutching, digging into Clark's arm as sobs are pulled from her body. "I know it's hard but I need an actual confirmation." The officer whispers.

"That's Chloe," Lois says. "That's my cousin."

"Thank you." He smiles sadly at her and makes a note on his clipboard.

"Can I have a minute alone with her?" Lois turns back to the table and the officer walks out.

"Lois, are you okay?" Clark asks tentatively.

"Yeah, fine." Lois turns to him, all her sobs forgotten, and her eyes completely dry. "That is not my cousin."

"Lois." Clark sags and looks at her pityingly.

"No, listen to me Clark. I know is going to sound crazy-she looks like Chloe, she's wearing Chloe's favorite shirt for God sake, but trust me when I say that body is not my cousin."

Clark stares at her for a minute. She isn't saying this out of grief. It isn't some form of denial; she truly believes that the woman on the slab is not her cousin. "Look, crazier things have happened in this town, you know and I know that it's possible. That's not Chloe."

Lois is right, stranger things can and have happened in Smallville and he doesn't want to believe that Chloe's dead any more than she does, so he gives her the benefit of the doubt. A sudden impulse makes him study the body more closely, using his x-ray vision, and then he knows, he knows that Lois is right. This is not Chloe.

In the years that they've known each other, worked together, all the times that she's helped Oliver and him with something or other, he's spent quite a bit of time checking her out after missions. Searching for broken bones or hidden injuries after she comes in from the field has become routine by now. He knows her body, and though he hasn't had to check her out for almost a year now, he knows her bones.

There should be a spot on her left arm where the bone had been broken, from falling out of Lex's window. There also should be a fine scar on her right shoulder, when Clark was forced to laser her, to dig out the chip Lex implanted in her. Neither of those scars are visible in this body. A ton other little things don't seem to add up either, her left knee is missing a chunk of old scar tissue and there's what looks like a large calcium deposit in the right ankle of the body on the slab that Clark knows for a fact Chloe would not have.

"I believe you," Clark says to Lois who sags in relief.

As much as she truly believes this is not her cousin, having Clark agree with her makes her sure that it's real and not just part of her imagination, that her cousin is out there somewhere and she vows in that moment to find her.

_No one knows what it's like_

_To feel these feelings_

_Like I do_

_And I blame you_

_No one bites back as hard_

_On their anger_

_None of my pain and woe_

_Can show through_

_-The Who_


	4. I Don't Live Today

____

__

**I Don't Live Today**

_No sun coming through my windows_

_Feel like I'm living at the bottom of a grave_

_I wish you'd hurry up and rescue me_

_So I can be on my miserable way_

**September 5, 2010**

It's only been a few days but by now Dean knows the drill, if Chloe can't be found anywhere, check the roof. He makes his way to her room on the second floor and sure enough finds the curtains are blowing wildly. "What are you doing out here?" Dean climbs onto the roof and scoots over to Chloe. He pulls his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around them with a shiver. "It's freakin' freezing."

Chloe doesn't say anything for a minute and Dean feels his teeth start to chatter. "My funeral started an hour ago." Chloe turns to look at him and huddles herself further into her coat.

"Oh."

____

_**Earlier that morning…**_

_Chloe is staring at the ceiling contemplating the fact that insomnia has caused some people to go clinically insane when her new phone rings. She reaches out to the bed side table idly and grabs it, answering on the third ring. She doesn't even look at the caller ID; only one person has the number. "Oliver, what can I do for you this fine morning?" She turns to the window which is covered in a thin layer of frost. _

_"I'm driving down the freeway, heading to Smallville where I will be attending your funeral."_

_"Oh." Chloe feels a strange ache in her chest and wills herself not to cry. "I'd tell you to have fun, but I'm not sure that's appropriate." _

_"No," Oliver agrees. _

_"So did you just call me to tell me that?" Chloe asks._

_"Actually, Lois mentioned that she wanted me to get up and say a few words and I just, I guess I wanted to ask you if there was anything specific you wanted me to say. About you or about your life?" _

_Chloe thinks about all the things she might want him to say, all the things she hopes can be said about her life, about what a good, kind, person she was, about how she tried to fight the good fight, spent her time and energy battling against injustice. She doesn't say any of that though, it sounds too appropriate and makes everything far too real, so she tries for flippant instead. "You mean aside from talking about how breathtakingly beautiful I was and how you were always secretly in love with me, but you never had the courage to say anything and now you've missed your chance?" _

_Oliver is quiet for a minute and Chloe fears that he didn't get the joke. "Well obviously, aside from that." The tension is broken as she chuckles. "Are you doing okay?" he asks her._

_"Good, all things considered." Chloe shrugs even though he can't see her._

_"You're not sleeping," Oliver objects._

_She thinks about protesting but doesn't have the energy. "How can you tell?" Her brow furrows in confusion. "By the sheer tone of my voice?" _

_"Oracle calls me with daily updates." Oliver laughs and Chloe looks down at her phone accusingly. _

_"You called and tattled on me?" she asks Oracle, who does not respond. "I know you're there, I know you're listening."_

_"I'm worried about your health. Insomnia has been known to cause people to go clinically insane," Oracle tells her and Chloe still cannot get over how weird it is to be lectured by her phone. "You consistently decline to take my very well researched advice, so I felt it was my duty to inform someone whom you might be more inclined to listen to." _

_"You told me to drink some warm milk and take a bath with jasmine oil." Chloe scoffs. "I've just found out I might be the last line of defense in the apocalypse. I don't think either of those things are going to help me sleep better and whether I sleep or not, I'm not sure it's any of Oliver's business. What exactly is he supposed to do about it anyway?" The last is said with a tone of bitter accusation. _

_"I've also told him that I think you need more social stimulation." Oracle's voice is also filled with the same accusatory tone. _

_"I know, I get the hint. I'll visit, whenever I can, it's just not that easy to get away," Oliver protests, wondering how everything got turned around on him, wondering when exactly he became the bad guy. _

_"Don't worry. I know the drill. I've done this before." Chloe smiles. "I understand how hard it is for the billionaire business man to find the time to sneak away and check up on the girl he's secretly hiding; whom everyone else thinks is dead." _

_There's yet another beat of silence. "It says something about our lives that you actually have been in this exact situation before." They both laugh._

_"To make it up to me, Lex always brought pizza." Chloe remembers fondly. _

_"Ham and pineapple, right?" Oliver asks._

_"You know me so well," Chloe tells him with a sigh. "Ollie." Her voice is suddenly serious and she wants nothing more than to break down, to cry and whine like a six-year-old who thought she was ready for her first sleep over but now wants nothing more than mommy and daddy to come pick her up, so she can sleep in her own bed. Then she remembers she doesn't have a bed to go home to anymore. "You better cry at my funeral. Cause otherwise, no one's going to believe that you were madly in love with me." _

_"Big fat pathetic tears," Oliver promises her and he's only half joking._

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"At this moment." Chloe looks idly at her watch then back over at Dean. "They are driving my casket through Smallville to the cemetery. My casket, which is currently holding the body of a woman whom I killed, who looks like me, who everyone thinks is me but is not me. A woman who was eulogized with the wrong life, who is going to be buried in the wrong plot, underneath the wrong headstone. It's

my plot, my headstone."

"Chloe?" Dean looks at her confused.

"She's going to spend eternity rotting under my name. Her family won't even know where to go to visit her. Her family doesn't even know that she's dead."

"What's really bothering you here?" Dean asks, sensing that there's something else going on.

"They're burying her in my plot." Chloe turns to Dean who still doesn't understand. "My plot, next to Jimmy."

"Oh." Dean finally connects the dots. He's still cold but he can barely feel it now. "Just to be sure here; are you mad because a stranger is being buried next to your ex-husband right now or because you aren't being buried next to your ex-husband right now?" He hates to ask but it's necessary because he needs to know her frame of mind. He's not sure how he's expected to protect someone if they've got a secret death wish.

Chloe stares at him for a second then looks back out into the woods, not answering his question, maybe because she doesn't know the answer. "This is the third time I've died you know, officially. I've actually only physically died twice." She picks at the edges of her sleeves absentmindedly. "If we get out of this and I get to be alive again, the Social Security Department is going to hate me."

Dean chuckles at her.

"Seriously, do you know how hard it is to come back from the dead? The sheer amount of paperwork that's involved?" She's smiling now and it makes Dean feel a little better.

"Come on." Dean holds out his hand and Chloe looks at it, as of unsure what to do. "This is not the way to celebrate faking your death." He stands unsteadily, his hand still outstretched.

"What would you know about that?" Chloe raises an eyebrow.

"I've had my fair share of deaths, got you beat astronomically actually. If you ask Sammy, the final tally is somewhere in the triple digits, but I only remember two of them."

"You've died over a hundred times?" Chloe raises her eyebrows at him.

"Long story involving a Trickster and a really annoying version of Groundhog Day," Dean explains. "In an unrelated story, I actually do know what it's like to have someone with your face being buried under a tombstone with your name." Chloe definitely wants to hear the rest of both of those stories and Dean can tell just by the intrigued look in her eyes. She slides her hand in his and allows him to pull her up and toward the window.

"So what exactly is the proper way to celebrate faking your death?" she asks climbing back into her bedroom.

Dean just smiles at her and winks. "We are going to get seriously drunk."

"Now that is the first good idea I've heard since I got here." Chloe smiles.

"Good 'cause I think my fingers are frozen solid." Dean shakes his hands, trying to get the blood to flow back into them and Chloe grabs them and rubs them between hers to warm them up. Dean looks down at her. "Thanks." She just shrugs, as if it's nothing, as if she's used to taking care of other people and after meeting her team, Dean can see that about her. The thing is, he's not used to someone taking care of him, so despite what Chloe's intention is, Dean feels every slide of her hands against his in the pit of his stomach and he swallows.

"So what's your poison?" Chloe asks, dropping his hands as abruptly as she grabbed them before.

"Let's see, a faked death, hiding from angels and demons, the approaching apocalypse." Dean pretends to think it over in his head. "This definitely calls for tequila."

Chloe winces slightly; hanging around Oliver has refined her tastes a bit. She's gotten used to thirty-year-old Single-Malt scotch and she can already feel the tequila coming back up before she's even managed to get it down. Not to mention the headache she'll have in the morning, but right now whatever he's offering sounds perfect.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Oliver hates this. He hates that he has to bow his head and look sufficiently heartsick whenever someone comes up to offer him their condolences. He hates that he has to smile sadly, nod and agree that yes, Chloe will be missed and yes, it is a tragedy to lose someone so young and yes, especially after what happened to her poor husband.

He also hates that he has to bite his tongue, when people that barely even knew Chloe from the Planet or even the few semesters that she spent at Met U walk up to Lois, tears falling down their faces, talking about how Chloe brought a light into the world that will forever be missed. That guy, Oliver seriously wanted to hit.

He hates that he has somehow found himself consoling Chloe's father. He came down from Paris for the funeral. Gabe keeps telling Oliver how much Chloe talked about him, how happy he is that after Jimmy, Chloe had someone that she could trust, could rely on, how in case Oliver wasn't sure, Gabe wanted him to know that Chloe thought the world of him. He feels like the most horrible person on the planet. As far as Gabe is concerned, his daughter is dead and yet the man is doing everything he can to make Oliver feel better.

What he hates the most though is the look that Lois keeps shooting his way, like she's sad for him too, like it's him and not her that has suffered the great loss here. Behind that sorrow Oliver can see something else though, like she knows something and that is disheartening.

Lois walks over to him after the last grieving guest leaves her alone and lays a reassuring hand on his arm. "Who's that guy?" She nods in the direction of the living room sofa. Sitting on the couch, looking decidedly uncomfortable and out of place is Castiel and Oliver resists the urge to do a spit take with the sip of coffee he just took.

"I think they worked together." Oliver swallows and turns away before Castiel catches him watching. "He looks vaguely familiar."

"I don't even know half these people." Lois sighs. "I feel like I didn't know Chloe. These past few years we grew apart and I didn't realize it until all these people I've never even seen before show up for her funeral."

"I'll tell you something." Oliver offers her a sad smile. "I don't think Chloe knew half of these people." Lois laughs and puts a hand up to her mouth to cover it. Oliver follows suit and they turn before the fellow mourners can tell that they're laughing in the midst of their grief.

When they settle down Lois turns suddenly sober. "That was a really nice speech you gave."

"I…thanks." Oliver nods.

"I know you and Chloe…after Jimmy left, you guys got really close and she said that-she told me once that she didn't think she would have gotten through it without you," Lois tells him.

Oliver feels a lump form in his throat. "Really?" He looks up and thinks if Lois doesn't stop talking he's going fulfill his promise to Chloe and start crying big fat pathetic tears, made even more pathetic by the fact that he knows Chloe is not in fact dead. He is slightly annoyed by the fact that it took the freaking apocalypse for him to find out how Chloe feels about him but reminds himself that she's probably just as in the dark about how he feels about her.

"She…" Lois bites her lip and spares a glance over her shoulder at Clark. Oliver observes the two of them having what looks like a silent conversation before Lois turns back to him. The reassuring hand she'd laid on his arm turns to a tight grip and she pulls him gently. "I can't do this to you."

Oliver frowns, confused as she leads him across the room, Clark following. She drags him into a bedroom and closes the door. When she turns to him she's all business, no grief visible anywhere. "What's going on Lois?"

"Chloe's not dead," she blurts out and Oliver freezes for a second.

"Come again?" he asks slowly sitting down on the edge of the bed. Clark looks at him strangely and Lois sits next to him grabbing his hand.

"Chloe is not dead." Lois repeats it slower as if that makes all the difference.

"But…" Oliver isn't sure where to go with this. "You identified the body, her body, I don't understand."

"That wasn't Chloe," Lois says. "It looked like Chloe; it was dressed like Chloe but whoever that body originally belonged to was not my cousin."

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't know." Lois growls in frustration. "But I know deep inside that Chloe is alive."

"Lois, Chloe is dead. I don't really appreciate this at all." Oliver looks away from Lois because he can't watch the reaction to his harsh words and Clark is still looking at him strange. "You haven't mentioned this theory of yours to Gabe have you? I just don't think he'd appreciate it much either."

"Look," Lois continues on, pretending that Oliver's words don't sting. "I'm going to find her. I'm going to find her and bring her back," Lois promises him. "I didn't want to upset you, I just-I couldn't let you grieve. I couldn't let you think she was dead when she's not."

Lois kisses him on the cheek and walks out of the room leaving Oliver and Clark alone together. "Where is she?" Clark asks and Oliver swallows and schools his features.

"In the plot next to Jimmy. We buried her there this morning." Oliver gets up and walks to the door but Clark stops him.

"That was not Chloe. Where is she?" He stands between Oliver and the door and Oliver knows if Clark doesn't want him to leave, he's not going to leave.

"Chloe is dead." Oliver glares at him.

"I looked at her bones," Clark says and Oliver visibly flinches at that. "I know Chloe's bones, I know her scars, and I know that body is not hers. I also know the only other person besides Chloe that could hide her so well is you, so I'll ask you one more time nicely. Where is she?"

"Look, whatever you and Lois are doing, whatever you think you know-you're wrong. Chloe is dead and you should let her stay dead." Oliver emphasizes the last part and hopes Clark gets the message. "It's better for everyone involved. Trust me."

"Better that Lois think her cousin is dead?" Clark glares.

"Trust me," Oliver says but the look on Clark's face lets him know they're beyond trust at this point. "If you don't trust me, trust Chloe. You know her-knew her, if she did something, she did it for a reason. Let it go Clark." Oliver steps past Clark back into the living room. He closes the door behind him and looks up to see Castiel standing right in front of him.

"Are they going to be a problem?" Castiel asks Oliver glancing over at Lois.

"If I say yes, are you going to kill them?" Oliver asks then holds up a hand because he's positive he doesn't want to know the answer to that question. "I can handle it."

"Like you handled things before?" Castiel snaps at him.

"What are you even doing here?" Oliver asks.

"Paying my respects," Castiel says and walks over to Lois. Oliver's teeth are on edge as he hears Castiel tell Lois how sorry he is for her loss.

"Thank you." Lois grips his hand and nods, stealing a look at Oliver.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe slams the empty shot glass on the table top and resists the urge to gag. Sam walks by on his way to the kitchen and pauses. "You guys do know it's only ten a.m?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at the half empty tequila bottle on the table.

"We are aware of the time, thank you." Dean snorts. "We're celebrating Chloe's funeral."

"That was today?" Sam frowns at Chloe. "Are you okay?"

"Of course she's not okay," Dean says before Chloe can answer. "That's what the tequila's for."

"Right." Sam nods.

"Come have a drink with me, Sammy." Chloe pats the chair next to her. "Drink to my death."

Sam smiles indulgently at her and shakes his head. "I think I'll at least wait until the sun goes down."

"OK then, more for me." Chloe pours another shot and throws it back, ignoring the lime and salt on the table.

"How come she gets away with calling you Sammy and I don't?" Dean glares at his brother.

"Because she looks like that, and you don't." Sam smirks before walking back to the other room.

Castiel walks in the back door and pauses when he sees Chloe sitting at the table with Dean. He looks from her to the bottle of tequila and Chloe glares, practically daring him to comment. He doesn't, instead he just walks right past them to the room that Sam went in.

"So what's that about?" Dean asks after a minute, pouring himself another shot.

"What's what about?" Chloe asks him confused.

"You and Cass, this cold shoulder thing you've got going," Dean explains. "Why are you so pissed at him?"

"I'm not pissed at him," Chloe says. "I'm indifferent towards him."

"I know indifferent." Dean shakes his head. "That was not indifferent, that look was more like…I want to boil your insides with my mind."

Chloe tips the shot glass on its edge and spins it around the table. "He lied to me."

Dean looks over at her, studying her before shaking his head. "No."

"No?" Chloe asks. "What do you mean, no?"

"I mean that's a bullshit reason, I don't accept it," Dean says.

"You don't accept it? You can't just not accept it, it's my reason," Chloe says.

"That's not why you're mad," Dean tells her as if he knows better. "Think about it a while, it'll come to you." He pours himself another shot. "Everybody lies. I lie, you lie, we expect people to lie, and we're generally more surprised when they tell the truth. Lying is not a valid reason to be mad at someone, so I don't accept it."

"Shut up." Chloe glares at him and takes the shot he poured for himself, slamming it back.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Clark steps out of the elevator into the dark lobby of the newsroom floor. He's always felt strange being in the Planet at night. For a place that's so busy during the day and so full of history, it feels wrong when it's quiet and empty. There's a sort of heavy weight in the dark, like the ghosts of stories past are whispering around him through the walls.

He remembers Chloe never felt like that. She was quite the opposite in fact. She loved the newsroom at night, when she had the whole place all to herself. Granted most of the time she was doing something illegal so it was better to wait until there were no witnesses around. Obviously, Lois feels the same as her cousin because Clark can see her now through the glass doors and he pauses.

Her face and part of her desk is illuminated poorly by the single lamp on the corner. She looks tired, run down, and he knows this is the second day, at least, for that shirt. He has no idea when the last time she slept was. He'd gone to her place with Chinese takeout after a night patrol as The Blur yielded surprisingly very little crime around the city, and found she wasn't there. He took a stab in the dark, figured after Chloe's funeral Lois might want to go to the place that Chloe felt the most at home, so he came to the Planet and there she was. He pushes through the doors and walks over to her desk, careful not to startle her. "Hey." She jumps despite his best efforts and lifts her head up. When she sees who it is she smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes.

"Make a bit more noise next time Smallville. You almost gave a girl a heart attack." Lois glares but her heart isn't in it.

"Sorry." He moves closer to her desk and sees the trashcan overflowing with empty coffee cups and a large pile of balled up papers. "It's almost one in the morning, what are you still doing here?"

"The Fire Marshall filed his report today." She tosses him the file folder that she's been flipping through. "Says the cause of the explosion was a leak in the gas pipe, rules it accidental."

"OK." Clark skims through the report as Lois talks. "So?"

"So." Lois yanks the file back from him. "There's no way that there was a leak in the gas pipe." Lois stands up and walks over to the coffee machine. "And I know there's no way there was a leak in the gas pipe because Oliver just replaced all the pipes in the building last month."

"Maybe they missed something," Clark offers her.

"They didn't miss anything," Lois snaps at him. "Oliver doesn't miss things."

"Oliver-" Clark cuts himself off, biting his tongue before he lets slip his suspicions about Oliver. It will kill Lois if she finds out that her ex-boyfriend is hiding something about Chloe from her, and if Clark's suspicions are right, actually hiding Chloe from her. "You can't keep doing this Lois."

"Chloe is out there somewhere," Lois tells him, the fight almost gone out of her. "The last time she had to fake her death was because someone was trying to kill her. So she's out there somewhere, alone, in danger. What am I supposed to do Clark?"

"Do you think that maybe…" He hates himself for repeating Oliver's words. "Maybe whatever Chloe's doing, she's got a good reason? Maybe we should trust her?"

Lois stares at Clark and for a second he thinks he got through to her but then her jaw sets and she shakes her head. "No. We're family and if she's in danger I'm going to help." Lois pushes him trying to move past him but he grabs her arms and holds her in place.

"What if she's doing this to protect you?" Clark asks.

"Then that's stupid," Lois tells him. "She's knows I can take care of myself. I know I haven't been the best cousin these past couple years. When her dad moved to Paris it was just the two of us and I told her then, that it was okay because whatever happened we could handle it together. Then Jimmy died and I got involved in my own life and I left her to fend for herself because I thought she didn't need me. But not anymore, she shouldn't have to do this alone, and I'm not going to let her do this alone whether she likes it or not." Lois deflates with every word she says, the only thing left keeping her going is the fierce loyalty she feels for her cousin fueled by the unbelievable weight of her guilt.

Clark feels a sting. Lois' words hit pretty close to home. After Jimmy died, after he took up the mantle of The Blur full-time and started dating Lois, he sort of let Chloe slip off to the sidelines. She acted like she had it all together, that she could handle it and Clark wanted to believe it because he had other things to worry about; Zod and the Kandorians, the people of Metropolis, Lois. Then Oliver came in and picked up some of the slack and it was easier to think she had it all handled.

And maybe she did. Maybe she has everything perfectly under control, maybe she doesn't need Lois' help or Clark's but that doesn't matter, because for the first time in a long time he realizes how much he needs Chloe, how much Lois needs Chloe and how even though she can do it on her own, she shouldn't have to. "OK." Clark nods at Lois. "OK, we'll find her." He pulls Lois into a hug. "You shouldn't have to do it alone either."

"Thank you." Her voice is barely a whisper and Clark knows those words are hard for her to say.

"We're in this together," Clark tells Lois. "And it's about time Chloe learned that."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe's head feels like someone stuffed an entire copy of War and Peace through her eye sockets. "It's too bright. Why is it so bright?" she asks no one in particular.

"How can it be too bright? Your eyes are closed," Sam answers her in a somewhat amused voice.

"It's still too bright," Chloe complains.

"It's also eleven at night." Sam laughs.

"You're being too loud," Dean says from somewhere across the room. "Shut up."

Chloe feels the rough fabric of the couch under her face and vaguely remembers passing out there at some point. She forces herself to pry her eyes open and spies Sam sitting across from her in a chair, reading the paper. Her vision swims into focus and she pulls herself to a sitting position. She almost doesn't notice the familiar paper cup on the table in front of her but the smell is unmistakable.

Chloe reaches out and picks the coffee cup up, sitting next to it are two aspirin. She looks over at Sam unsure before grabbing those and swallowing them with the coffee. "How did you know?" she asks Sam.

"How did I know what?" Sam lowers the paper as Dean stirs to life from his position on the floor.

"My hangover coffee?" Chloe asks. "Dark roast, black, extra shot."

"I didn't get that for you." Sam smiles and goes back to his paper. "Cass did."

"Oh." Chloe set the cup on the coffee table and looks up to see Dean staring at her with a strange expression on his face. "I miss him," Chloe says apropos of nothing but Dean understands. She's answering his question from before, the question of why she's so mad at Castiel. "I miss him." Chloe looks up and stares at Dean.

"He's right there." Dean offers her and nods to the other room.

"No, he's not." Chloe shakes her head. "Not the Cass I knew, not the one that worked for me. Not the one that spent the past year with me. That person was a lie. He was made up, he wasn't real but I still miss him."

"Is he that different?" Sam asks, his paper now dropped to the side of the chair forgotten.

"I don't know." Chloe shrugs. "I mean, I haven't really gotten to know him like this." Dean raises an eyebrow. "It's not just that though. I miss who I was with him, who I could be."

"I don't follow." Dean pulls himself to his feet and stumbles to the couch next to her.

"My job makes it really hard to meet someone, to have normal relationships with people. I don't just mean in a romantic sense either, making and keeping new friends is nearly impossible," Chloe explains, her fingers curling around the hot coffee cup. "My job, my life over the past three years has become one big secret. Everyone I know and everything I know about them is a secret. Everything I do and everywhere I go is one big secret. At some point, I had become one big secret."

Dean and Sam are avidly listening to her now. The tone of her voice suggesting this is the first time she's talked about this, maybe even the first time she's really thought about it. "I don't work a nine to five; I can't talk about my day. I can't have someone meet me at the office for lunch. I can't even tell people what I do or who I work with. If I get a call in the middle of dinner, it's going to be important, and it's going to be something that I can't talk about, so then I have to lie, make up an excuse and leave. That lie leads to another lie and then another. I found that it became easier to just make someone up, someone else, someone completely different. But at some point, I'd begin to forget who I was pretending to be in the first place and everything would just crumble."

Chloe sips the coffee and smiles fondly. "But Cass-I never had to lie to Cass. To do his job, he needed to know about my job, he needed to know my secrets. I didn't have to lie to him, I couldn't lie to him. I got to tell him all of those secrets that I'd been bottling up about who I was and who my friends were and what I really did for a living and it was liberating. And once I'd unburdened all those things on him it was…easy to tell him the rest."

Chloe laughs and shakes her head. "Before long, I'd found that I'd told him everything. He knew that I was the girl who traded her best friend's privacy for ten stupid inches of type on page nine under the fold that no one even bothered to read. He knew that I was the girl who harbored a serial killer in my basement, which ultimately led to the death of my husband. Somehow, in three months, he knew me better than Oliver did after three years. He knew it all and he didn't care. Do you have any idea what an amazing feeling that is, to have someone know you, the real you and like you anyway, to see all of those things deep inside of you that you hate about yourself and not care? And I can't help but wonder how much of it was a lie. Did he ever really like me? Did he ever really care?"

Dean feels something strange in his throat because he doesn't know that feeling; he's never known that feeling. He's not even sure there's a single person on the planet that knows everything about him. He can't imagine, knowing the things that he's done in his life, that if someone did know everything about him how they could possibly still love him. But he could imagine how much it would hurt if you thought you had someone like that, and then in one fell swoop you lost it.

"The worst part though, when I was around him, I could be myself-finally. I could be the girl that I was supposed to be, that I would have been without all these secrets, without these things weighing me down. It was nice and it was fun being her and I miss her."

"Who says you can't be her anymore?" Dean frowns.

"I'm not sure how to explain it, but I feel like now, after everything that's happened I can't be that girl anymore than he can be that guy, the person he was pretending to be."

"So be this girl." Dean shrugs. "I mean I've only known her for a little while but she seems pretty cool." Chloe rolls her eyes at him. "And who says that the girl you were with him and the girl you are now, are two different people anyway? Who says the man that Cass was pretending to be wasn't the man he really is, the man he wants to be without all his secrets weighing him down? So you both lied and maybe neither of you lied…does it really matter in the face of the end of the world?"

Chloe stands, her coffee still clutched in her hands. "You're far too profound when you're hung over," she says walking out of the room. Before she can stop herself, she makes her way through the kitchen into the study. It's the room that Sam and Castiel have basically spent the majority of their time in the past few weeks. They've been pouring over books, papers and articles, anything they can get their hands on that might somehow lead them to the location of their errant deity

Chloe stands, propped up against the doorjamb, staring at Castiel who is doing what he always does these days, he's reading. Sam walks in around her, grabs a book from the stack he set aside the day before and sits. He reads for five minutes before he realizes that Chloe hasn't left, nor has she made a move to come into the room. Castiel for his part is ignoring the fact that she's been staring at him.

"Thanks," Chloe says and the room has been so quiet that one word reverberates off the walls and both Sam and Castiel look up. "For the coffee." She lifts the cup and Castiel smiles slightly.

"I thought you might need it." He shrugs. "After the tequila."

She takes a step in the room and rests her hip on the edge of the table. "Do you remember the last time we had tequila?" He smiles and nods and Sam stops pretending to be interested in the book and instead listens.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

____

_**February 4, 2010**_

_"We are in the city of love." Bart plops down on the deck of the boat. _

_"That's Paris," Chloe mumbles, her eyes not lifting from the screen in front of her. _

_"We're in the most beautiful city in the world," Bart corrects himself. _

_"We are in the middle of the ocean," Castiel says this time turning to Bart confused. He gestures around to the miles of crystal blue Mediterranean water that surrounds them off the coast of Ibiza. _

_"Fine." Bart smiles. "There's a beach fifty miles that way." Bart speaks slowly to them as if they are small children or mentally impaired in some way. "Full of people wearing very little clothing, who speak very little English." He sighs. "We've been floating out here for three days, alone, on this tiny little boat."_

_"You do realize that this tiny little boat is four times bigger than your apartment?" Chloe laughs finally giving her fingers a rest, turning away from her computer and looking around Oliver's yacht in amusement._

_"Chloe. I'm a social creature," Bart reminds her. "The two of you could live happily ever after as hermits, as long as you were together but I can't do that." _

_"We would not technically be hermits if we lived together." Castiel frowns. _

_"I need people." Bart throws his hands up in the air in exasperation. _

_"Oliver told us to stay on the boat and watch the rig," Chloe reminds him, nodding over her shoulder to said abandoned oil rig which hasn't been so abandoned in the last few months. They suspect that the space is being used to refine red kryptonite into a liquid form and that's why they're here._

_"Well that's easy for Oliver to say, he's not stuck on this boat is he?" Bart pouts. Oliver is in fact on the mainland, being schmoozed by one of the brains behind the red kryptonite project who's hoping that Oliver will invest some of his millions into the scheme. _

_Chloe sighs, she's never really been able to say no to Bart before and now is no exception. "OK, fine, you can have the night off. Go party on the mainland." _

_"Thank you." Bart jumps forward and hugs Chloe, much to her amusement. She turns to Castiel as if to share the moment and pauses at the look on his face. _

_"What?" she asks confused and he looks from her to the mainland. "No, don't tell me you want to go too?" _

_"I have never been to Ibiza," he says in argument. "And I think that you want to go but you do not want to admit that you want to go." He smiles slightly at her. _

_"We can't all go." Chloe shakes her head. "Who will keep an eye on the rig?" she sputters in weak protest._

_"I can," a voice calls out from her computer. _

_"No offence Oracle," Chloe turns and speaks to the screen. "But you're still in the Beta testing stage and I don't really feel comfortable giving you that responsibility." _

_"I can do it," the program protests. "I can hack into the rig's systems, reactivate the security cameras and monitor the activity through the internal CCTV feed. I can watch the surrounding waters from the cameras on Oliver's boat and I can send hourly updates via text message to your phone."_

Chloe pauses. She hadn't even thought to hack into the rig's systems. "I don't know."

_"By-hourly updates," Oracle offers. _

_"By-hourly updates," Bart says it like she's being offered the crowned jewels. "Come on, how can you pass that up?"_

_Chloe turns to Castiel, who is usually her voice of reason. "They have drinks with the little umbrellas in them," Castiel tells her instead and she sighs in resignation. _

_"Two hours," she warns pulling herself to her feet. "That's it." _

_The two of them end up stumbling onto the boat just as the sun is rising in the sky, only to come face to face with Oliver and Bart, standing there waiting, arms crossed over their chests and that 'I'm so very disappointed in you' look on their faces. _

_"Oh shit," Castiel says registering the gravity of the situation. In true drunk person fashion, he chooses to display the exact opposite emotion that he should, by busting out laughing. "They look pissed," he whispers very loudly to Chloe. _

_"That they do." Chloe tries to pat his arm and misses by a few feet. She stumbles and causes each of the men who reach forward to__catch her. Surprisingly, with the amount of alcohol in his system, Castiel gets to her first and sets her back up right. Oliver and Bart are still glaring however. "But they seem to be madder at you than at me." She looks between Castiel and Oliver and if looks could kill she reckons that Castiel's head would be splattered all over the deck of the boat. _

_"How did you get so drunk?" Bart asks Chloe confused as her breath washes over him. "When I left you two, you were drinking the weakest fruity cocktails known to man with the sissy little umbrellas hanging out of them." _

_"Hey," Castiel says suddenly, all serious as his hands tangle into the fabric of Bart's shirt. It's possible the look he's going for is threatening. "Do not mock the little umbrellas." His serious face doesn't last very long and he dissolves into laughter again. "Without them what would the tap dancing frogs use to keep themselves dry in the rain?" _

_This statement triggers Chloe's laughter again and the two of them are completely useless as they relive a drunken memory from the night before. _

_Chloe manages to catch her breath long enough to answer Bart's initial question. "After the first cocktail, the group next to us started doing tequila shots and Castiel mentioned that he'd never done tequila shots, so they bought us a tequila shot, then another, then another." _

_"I'll deal with you two in a minute." Oliver turns to Bart and raises his eyebrows. "When you left them? What were you doing with them and why would you leave?" _

_Bart registers too late that he'd implicated himself in this whole thing and tries to backtrack. "Look, how was I supposed to know he couldn't hold his liquor? Shouldn't he have some sort of super constitution or something? And Chloe, she hasn't left the house in a year and a half; I didn't think she'd jump into the deep end and go girls gone wild on me. I thought they'd have a drink and then come back to the boat." _

_"This is why we tell you not to think." Oliver smacks him lightly on the back of the head and then turns his attention back to Chloe. "Explain to me who was watching the rig while you were introducing Cass to tequila?" _

_"Oracle." Chloe hiccups._

_"The computer program? The computer program that you created just two weeks ago?" Oliver frowns. "The same computer program that you told me was still in the very early testing stages? The same computer program that just yesterday told you that Hamlet was the worst piece of writing in the history of the world?" _

_Chloe glares at him and crosses her own arms over her chest in an effort to look intimidating. "I don't see what exactly poor literary judgment has to do with her ability to keep an eye on one measly little oil rig," Chloe scoffs._

_"No, you're right, but the fact that they up and moved the whole operation in the middle of the night might indicate that future testing is still required," Oliver counters. _

_"What?" Chloe shakes her head. "No, you see she was supposed to send me by-hourly updates." She pulls out her phone and frowns at the screen. "Oh," she says sheepishly staring at the little box that says 45 messages. "Well, at least we know it wasn't a software problem." _

_"No." Oliver pinches the bridge of his nose. "It was a personnel problem." _

_"Sorry." Chloe shrugs sheepishly and makes an effort to look contrite._

_"Yes, sorry," Castiel says sobering up. That seems to last for all of two seconds until he turns to Chloe. "Where do you suppose the frogs find their tiny little tap shoes?" And then they're both laughing again. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"I guess Bart's comment about you having a super constitution makes more sense now." Chloe smiles sadly. "And also why they were madder at you."

"I was supposed to be protecting you, not getting drunk with you," Castiel agrees.

"Who was Cass?" she asks and it isn't until that moment that she realizes she's already separated the two of them, the Castiel that she knows and Castiel the angel. "Who was the guy who worked with me for half a year? Did you just make him up?"

"Partly," Castiel admits and Chloe winces, she knows why people lie because the truth hurts. "Parts of him were Jimmy." At the look on Chloe's face he back peddles, fast. "Not your-that was-the man who used to reside in this body. His name was Jimmy." The explanation makes it only slightly better, although she's sure now knowing that Castiel's former owner shares the same name as her husband doesn't help in the least. "Parts of him…I don't know, maybe they are who I would have been, who I think I'd like to be."

"Was it even real?" Chloe asks. "Did you ever even really like me or was that all pretend too?"

"No, that was very real." Castiel pauses. "When I was with you, for the first time I was the person I think I could have been, if I'd have been a person."

"I don't know who you are anymore," she tells him earnestly.

He stares at her for a minute before shrugging. "Neither do I," he admits.

"I feel like…" Chloe smiles sadly and sits down in the chair next to him. "I feel like if I don't know who you are anymore, then I don't know who I am anymore."

"That's okay," he says. "I know who you are."

She nods and her shoulders slump, like a weight has been lifted off of them. "Want some help?" Chloe sets the coffee down and pulls a book closer to her.

"That would be nice." He nods and goes back to reading his book.

Chloe gets about two pages in before she slumps against the table. "Do you do this a lot?" She turns to Sam and he looks up confused. "Research like this?"

"You mean…" Sam is unsure where she's going with this.

"With books?" Chloe wrinkles her nose.

"Pretty much all the time." Sam laughs.

"It's so….slow," she complains and shoves the book away toward Sam.

"It's a process," he agrees with her.

"I don't like it." She pouts.

"Well until we have some sort of electronic comprehensive encyclopedia of all things Supernatural, this is how we have to do it." Sam pushes the book back in her direction.

He has a few seconds of blissful, silent concentration and then suddenly without warning Castiel and Chloe burst out laughing, uncontrollably and thoroughly unapologetically. He closes his book and looks up at them. "You're thinking about tiny tap dancing frogs, aren't you?"

They both nod through their laughter and Sam packs up his books and leaves the room. Sitting in the living room while Dean watches Dr. Sexy MD will be less distracting than those two.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**September 7, 2010**

"Lois!" Clark calls out into the cavernous basement of the Daily Planet. "Are you down here?" He checks his phone again to make sure he's in the right place. 911! Daily Planet basement. Come alone. He's about to call to her again when he feels a soft hand close over his mouth, silencing him. He recognizes the smell of Lois perfume and turns.

"Geez, do you have any concept of stealth?" Lois is glaring at him but at least she looks rested. "When I said come alone, I assumed you would get the hidden meaning that this was a secret thing. You weren't followed, were you?" She turns around and walks off. She doesn't bother to wait for an answer or doubt that Clark is going to follow her.

"Sorry, I didn't realize we woke up this morning in the middle of the Maltese Falcon," Clark calls after her. She spares him a withering glance over her shoulder as she leads him through a maze of floor to ceiling shelving. "What's so secret anyway? What are we doing down here?"

"I wanted to show you my base of operations." Lois smiles, the tone in her voice almost giddy.

"Base of operations?" Clark asks, knowing that he's probably not going to like the answer.

"Yeah, remember the other night when you told me that I shouldn't have to do it alone? Well you were right." She turns a corner and stops. Clark catches up with her and can hardly believe his eyes.

Hidden in an unused back corner of the basement, behind stacks of file boxes, Lois has managed, in two days, to set up a fully functioning Operations Center. There are desks with computers, phones, printers and faxes and even people to man everything. "Are those interns?" he asks staring at the space in amazement.

"Yeah." Lois nods, obviously proud of her achievement.

"Where did you get all this stuff?" He walks up to one of the desks and sees a scanner in use.

"You know, here or there." Lois shrugs. "Wherever I thought it wouldn't be missed."

"And you don't think Tess is going to notice you misappropriating Daily Planet office equipment and supplies?" Clark counts two more interns and shakes his head. "And her employees?"

"That's why this is a secret," Lois tells him. "And don't say stuff like that too loud…these guys think they're helping me work on a story."

"Lois, they could get fired for this." Clark looks at her scandalized.

"Yes, which is why I didn't tell them. Keep up, Smallville," Lois snaps at Clark and he's more amazed that he's no longer amazed by things like this anymore.

"Syracuse was a dead end, Miss Lane." A young, pimple faced kid walks up and hands Lois a cup of coffee.

"Put it on the map," Lois tells him and he walks off. Clark follows the kid with his eyes as he grabs a red push pin out of a box and walks over to a large wall mounted map of the world. He inserts the pin in the middle of New York then walks back to his desk.

"Lois…" Clark is speechless but Lois' grin is huge-like the cat that ate the canary, and then managed to convince everyone that the canary ran away.

"This isn't even the best part." Lois grabs his arm and pulls him to a desk in the corner. Clark dreads to think what could be better than this. "Clark, I want you to meet Harry."

"Hey," Harry offers Clark an offhanded greeting, not even bothering to look up from his computer screen where he's typing rapidly.

"Harry is a forensic computer…guy." Lois waves her hand vaguely as if that explains everything. "He's on loan to us from the Metropolis P.D."

"On loan?" Clark asks.

"She's blackmailing me, Harry says with the nonchalance of someone ordering a salad, dressing on the side, please.

"I'm not blackmailing you; I'm calling in a favor," Lois says pointedly.

"You say potato, I say blackmail." Harry shrugs.

Clark turns to Lois with his eyebrows raised, so far not impressed with Harry. "It doesn't matter; Harry's not what I wanted to show you. This is what I wanted to show you." Lois points past Harry where there is a table covered in what looks like charred and melted pieces of metal and plastic.

"And what is this?" Clark walks over and makes a move to pick one of the pieces up.

Harry stops typing immediately and spins around to face him. "Don't touch dude." Clark takes a step back and raises his hand in supplication.

"This is Chloe's computer," Lois says proudly. "Or at least the pieces that we could salvage."

"How did you get these?" Clark stares at the wreckage on the table trying to reconcile it with Chloe's Watchtower systems. Lois doesn't answer and he turns to her. She's studiously ignoring him.

"We liberated them from the Fire Marshall," Harry answers for her as he goes back to his typing.

"You stole them?"

"Borrowed," Lois counters. "And he was done with his investigation anyway, what did he need them for?"

"They were evidence," Clark points out.

"Exactly," Lois says. "And he was ignoring their significance." She shakes her head. "He's had them for two weeks now and has done nothing whereas Harry here has only had them for a few hours and you'll never guess what he found." Harry opens his mouth to explain but Lois beats him to it. "Chloe dumped everything." Clark frowns at her confused and Harry jumps in to elaborate.

"I haven't even made it through half the tech she had in that place but from what I have gone through I found something very interesting." Harry spins around dramatically to face Clark. "Five minutes before the explosion, exactly five minutes, there was a systematic wipe of the entire system."

"Exactly five minutes?" Clark frowns.

"Exactly. Like it was planned," Harry explains excitedly. "Not only that, when I dug a little deeper I realized it wasn't exactly a wipe, but rather a dump. She didn't delete everything, she just moved it."

"Like she was trying to save it? How would she know the explosion was going to happen?" Clark asks and Lois and Harry share a look. "What?"

"Maybe she knew the explosion was going to happen because she was the one who caused the explosion," Harry tells him.

"Wait, you think Chloe blew up her own building? Her home?" Clark shakes his head not buying it.

"The Fire Marshall declared it an accidental gas explosion but look at this stuff." Harry motions to the table full of the pieces of Chloe's computers. "It's not just damaged it's destroyed, completely, practically every piece of it. The chance of a random accidental explosion causing this kind of damage is astronomical. And if you look even closer at it, you'll see that the pieces themselves look like they were almost rigged individually to…well…self destruct."

"Self destruct? You're kidding now aren't you?" Clark looks between Harry and Lois. "You have to know how this sounds."

"I do, trust me." Harry nods. "But I've only ever seen localized damage like this once before in my whole career. On a CIA computer."

"CIA? Like 'this message will self destruct after five seconds' CIA?" Clark asks. "That's what you're saying?"

"Well change five seconds to five minutes and yeah, basically. Whoever set this explosion wanted to make sure whatever was on these hard drives would never be recovered." Harry nods.

"But let me guess, you recovered something?" Clark asks suddenly afraid. Chloe had all the League stuff on there, all of his stuff on there.

"Hell no." Harry laughs and looks at Lois. "You're cousin is ten times better than me. I can't find anything, it's like the system was wiped clean from the inside somehow."

Clark breathes a sigh of relief. "Then what are you doing here?" Clark asks him.

"I said I couldn't find any information, but I can still find information on the information," Harry tells them, they both stare at him confused. "I can tell you where it went." He starts typing again. "Maybe. She's been leading me on a wild goose chase all over the world but I'm onto her, I'll find the real destination." Harry is talking more to the screen than to Lois and Clark at this point and they take that as their cue to leave.

"Well, he seems very useful," Clark jokes and Lois slaps him.

"I'll tell you one thing, her set up, it was massive. The tech that she would need to pull something like this off…" Harry whistles. "She must have been rolling in dough."

"It was expensive?" Lois frowns at this.

"I'm talking mid six figures at the least." Harry nods before going back to his screen.

"Where would Chloe get that kind of money?" Lois asks Clark.

"Oliver," Clark breathes out. He'd thought at first that maybe Oliver knew something, that he was helping Chloe, keeping her secret. The more he thinks about it, the more he sees how deeply entrenched in Chloe's life Oliver is.

"You don't think?" Lois' eyes get huge as the consequences of that statement fully registers to her.

Clark knows Chloe has the skill and the know how to pull something like this off on her own but she doesn't have the capital. The last time she faked her death, Lex footed the bill. Oliver is more than just slightly involved in this, he's bankrolling it. "I think we should follow the money. Who else does Chloe know rich enough to do this? I think the money will lead us to Oliver and I think Oliver will lead us to Chloe."

Lois knows that if what Clark's saying is true that means that Oliver lied to her, that he's been lying to her for a while now and that is not something that she can take lightly. "OK, we follow the money." She turns and walks away, screaming for interns and Clark knows that he does not want to be Oliver Queen when Lois catches up with him.

**September 8, 2010**

Dean stops before stepping into the kitchen at the sound of an unfamiliar voice, a man. He reaches in the waist band of his pants for his gun and flips the safety off. Then Chloe laughs and he relaxes slightly, sliding the gun back in its place and steps into the room, leaning against the doorway.

"You're really okay?" Bart asks her. "I mean seriously?" He's standing next to her at the kitchen counter and she pours a cup of coffee.

"Seriously." Chloe laughs again and Dean smiles, he likes her laugh.

"They're feeding you okay?" Bart looks her up and down.

"I'm not starving," she assures him.

"It's just; the food in this place is atrocious. I dare you to find good Mexican, and Chinese, forget about it."

"I don't think they chose this area for its average Zagat ratings," Chloe points out and walks over to the kitchen table which has become her base of operations. She's working on something, has been for a few weeks now and she won't tell them what it is, she's being very tight lipped about the whole thing.

"I can bring you some Moo Shu," Bart offers. "From that little place downtown you love."

"Maybe next time." Chloe smiles up at him. "Thanks for checking up on me."

"I can stay." Bart sits down next to her.

"I need you to watch over Oliver for me, watch over the guys," Chloe tells him, grabbing his hand. "Can you do that?"

"Your wish is my command, it always is. You know, if you call, I'll be here in two seconds."

"I know." Chloe nods. He kisses her cheek, offers her a roguish wink and then he's gone.

"Was that Bart?" Dean calls out, announcing his presence and walking into the kitchen.

"Yes, he was just bringing me a present from Oliver." Chloe's smile is huge and bright and he hasn't seen her smile like that since he met her. He grabs a beer and sits down.

"And making sure we haven't let you drown in the bathtub or anything," Dean offers.

"Well obviously they were very worried about that." Chloe nods. There is a box in front of her and she opens it slowly, almost reverently.

"Nice." Dean twists open the top on his beer and looks down at the computer sitting in the box. Chloe turns to glare at him.

"This is not nice, this is…amazing. This thing has a half terabyte hard drive with 5GHz of processing power, a 17-inch touch screen monitor with a custom designed operating system." Chloe runs her hands along the top of the computer delicately.

"Yeah and it's silver so…shiny," Dean offers lamely.

"There's one for Sam too." Chloe pulls it out and opens it, turning it on slowly.

"Sam already has a computer," Dean points out and Chloe looks at him sheepishly shaking her head. "Sam had a computer?" he corrects himself, arching an eyebrow at Chloe for an explanation.

"He let me borrow his for a project I'm working on and I sort of melted his hard drive," Chloe explains.

"You can do that?" Dean asks eyes wide.

"I know, I'd never seen anything like it before, but I was trying to load Oracle's programming on it and it couldn't handle it." Chloe shrugs.

"It is getting a bit cramped in here." Oracle complains from the confines of Chloe's phone.

"Well when he sees that, I don't think he'll mind." Dean shakes his head.

"OK, Oracle, let's try this again." Chloe plugs the phone into the computer. "Victor laid in your base programming already so the transition should be relatively easy."

"Oh," Oracle says excitedly. Dean raises his eyebrows as the voice fluctuates between the phones speaker and the computer's speakers. "This is amazing," Oracle groans in pleasure, with a long satisfied sigh. "There's so much room to stretch out, and, oh my, is that a Wi-Fi connection I feel? The speed is…exhilarating." Oracle's voice has become breathless and Dean feels uncomfortable.

"It's like…it's like computer porn." Dean stares at the screen slightly disturbed. "Only not the good kind."

Chloe laughs. "Trust me, this is a good thing."

"I'll just take your word for it and leave you alone with your…terabytes." Dean stands up and walks away.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**September 24, 2010**

Lois stares at the board in front of her. The whole thing is covered in pictures, mainly of Oliver but there are a few others up there as well.

"You're spying on him?" Clark asks coming up behind her.

"Yes." Lois feels no shame, no guilt for doing this. "He knows something about Chloe, you were right."

"I didn't tell you to spy on him," Clark points out.

"I know." Lois crosses her arms as she pins the photos on the board, photos taken earlier that week by one of the interns. There are shots of Bart, Victor and AC entering the Watchtower, and hanging out with Oliver around town in Star City.

"What makes you think these guys are important?" Clark asks cautiously.

"Because." Lois turns around. "Harry managed to put together a bunch of footage of Chloe's buddies from the CCTV cameras on the street around the building. These three guys are seen coming and going quite a bit. They were regulars at Chloe's and they're regulars at Oliver's. There's got to be a connection."

Clark's not sure what to say, she's right, of course she's right but he can't tell her that because that would be admitting that he knows far more than she thinks he does. He's also shocked. The more they dig into this, the more obvious it is that it wasn't just Oliver involved in this, it was the whole team. If he's perfectly honest with himself, he's also a little hurt that they didn't trust him enough to bring him in on it. "You think they'll lead us to Chloe?"

"That's the plan." Lois nods and Clark walks away to leave her to it.

That had been the plan anyway; the plan wasn't exactly going to plan though. Sure, Lois knows a whole lot more now than she did before. She recognized AC right away but it took her a while to sort out names for the two others, Victor Stone and Bart Allen, but that's all she knows. She thinks, but she can't be sure, they might be members of a team, Oliver's team, a team he mentioned, slightly in passing. This means they likely have some sort of power, maybe even a secret identity, like the Green Arrow, which would explain a lot about AC but at the moment all it's doing is making her job harder.

As much as Lois wants to find her cousin, she isn't willing to risk Oliver's secret or the secret of his team members because she has a sinking feeling that Chloe knows all of this, that Chloe is a part of Oliver's team. If this is true, Lois knows if she does anything to jeopardize them, when she finds Chloe, her cousin will likely never forgive her.

She plucks the picture of Bart Allen off the wall and stares at it. He's the key, she knows it. Lois saw him slipping into and out of Chloe's almost five times more often than any of the others, save Oliver. She's convinced Bart is going to lead her to Chloe, only he's always disappearing.

She turns to her right where, piled haphazardly on the desk in front of her is disc after disc of footage of Oliver and his team. She's had the interns randomly taping them and it's a risky move, she can't guarantee she won't catch them in a moment where they're using their powers or compromising their secret identities but it's a risk she's willing to take. She grabs a well watched copy of a disc from a few weeks ago and pops it into the DVD player, firing it up. She's watched this one a hundred or so times. It's one of the many instances of Bart's amazing disappearing acts and she knows it has something to do with Chloe.

"I just wish I could read lips," she mumbles to herself hitting play.

"I can read lips," a voice says from behind her, startling her and Lois turns around. It's an intern, Mary, she thinks the girls name is.

"Seriously?" Lois asks. The girl nods shyly and Lois smiles. "Alright, let's get to work then." She turns her attention back to the screen where Oliver's passing Bart a package of some kind.

"Make sure to get it this to Sidekick ASAP," Mary translates. "Sidekick? Is that a place?"

Lois smiles slowly. "Sidekick's not a place." She sits down. "It's a person."

It was a few months back. She'd gone over to Chloe's to pick her up for diner and maybe a movie, just the two of them hanging out, like old times. Oliver had been there and when they were leaving he'd looked at her cousin with the most pathetic looking puppy dog face.

"Come on Sidekick, you're seriously going to make me fend for myself?" Oliver frowns.

"I'm not leaving you alone in the wilderness." Chloe laughs and Lois is surprised at her lack of comment on the derogatory nickname. "There are take-out menus in the top drawer and I'll be home before midnight." She kisses him on the cheek and grabs her coat on the way out.

"Sidekick?" Lois raises an eyebrow. "Since when do you two have nicknames? Since when do you not hit him for calling you something like Sidekick?"

"It's…a long story." Chloe shakes her head, actually smiling fondly at the memory. "Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime."

"It's Chloe," Lois says with conviction. This is it; this is the break she's been waiting for. "He's sending it to Chloe."

"But he's back too quickly." Mary points to the screen where sure enough, Bart has just returned to. "You think he brought it to her already? You think she's in Star City?"

Lois isn't sure what to think, it doesn't seem likely. Bart was only gone ten minutes at the most, that isn't long enough to get very far and if Chloe's been in Star City this whole time Lois is going to kill someone.

"Maybe he mailed it," Mary offers.

"They wouldn't be that sloppy." She shakes her head. "Mail is traceable."

"Wait, he's saying something." Mary squints. "Oliver: How was she? Bart: How do you think? Oliver: Did she like the gift? Bart: Was there ever any doubt. Oliver: So she's okay? Bart: As good as can be expected, I don't know how…"

"What?" Lois is on the edge of her seat now. They're talking about Chloe, she's okay, she's alive.

"He's saying…well, it doesn't make any sense."

"What?" Lois asks more firmly.

"He said, 'I don't know how she's not going crazy, there are absolutely no good Mexican restaurants in the entire state of Montana'."

"Montana," Lois whispers.

"He's talking like…I mean it sounds like he's saying she's in Montana, and he just…but that's over twelve hours from Star City, there's no way," Mary says confused.

"Montana," Lois says again turning off the television and calling across the room. "Harry? Didn't we find something in Montana? Didn't Oliver do something in Montana?"

"Uh, yeah, I think…" Harry starts typing rapidly. "I think he bought a house." Screen after screen pop up then disappear on Harry's monitor. "No, not a house a cabin. In the woods. Spent a lot of money fixing it up too, brand new doors and windows, serious security."

"She's there," Lois says. "Chloe's there, I guarantee it." She grabs her coat and her bag.

"Where are you going?" Mary asks.

"The airport, then Montana," Lois says, sliding the coat over her shoulders.

"I'll drive you; long term parking is such a headache." Mary sets down her things. "Swing by your apartment and pack a bag, I'll call Mr. Kent, let him know what you've found then come pick you up."

Lois pauses. "Thanks Mary, that's really nice." She smiles before walking out.

"Oh it's my pleasure." Mary smiles and for one brief second her eyes turn completely black. "And the name's Mara."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The knock on the cabin door startles everyone. Bart never knocks when he comes to check on her. They never order in, they always go out and pick up food and this far into the woods there normally aren't many door-to-door salesmen or girl scouts.

Dean grabs a shotgun while Sam arms himself with a knife and Castiel stands in front of Chloe, as a sort of human or more accurately angel shield.

"It's probably just Bobby." Chloe shrugs.

"Bobby?" They all turn to her with surprised expressions on their faces.

"Bobby, Bobby Singer? He said he was gonna try and leave early this morning so he should be here by now." Chloe calculates the miles in her head then nods agreeing with her own statement.

"How do you know Bobby Singer?" Dean asks.

"I found him through your dad's journal and contacted him for some help on a project I was working on," Chloe explains. "We e-mailed back and forth, got to talking, your name came up and I told him what was going on." She gives Dean a significant look over the rim of her mug. "He seemed kind of hurt that he wasn't in on the situation, and that he had to hear about it from me. You really should call him more often."

Dean glares at her. "You just told him where to come? You told him where you were?" Chloe nods. "You can't just give people directions to the secret cabin, that sort of defeats the whole secret part of it," he points out to her.

"He's a friend of yours," Chloe tells Dean as if he didn't know that already.

"You don't know that. I mean yes, Bobby is a friend of mine but you don't know that who you're talking to is Bobby," Dean points at the computer like it something poisonous.

"You think that demons and angels are just browsing around the internet hoping they'll stumble onto me in what, some Hunters' chat room?"

Dean doesn't say anything because when she puts it that way it sounds slightly ridiculous.

"Besides, this isn't my first rodeo. I dug up everything I could find on him before I even talked to him, so I could quiz him on obscure facts. I've got his army medical file, his tax returns going back forty years and his Netflix orders. He says the Hurt Locker is overrated by the way, slightly disappointing. Then I traced his IP, compared it to his billing address, pulled his phone records and compared it to yours. You guys used to talk to each other about twice a week you know."

"You pulled his phone records?" Dean asks.

"I also had Oracle pull an old voicemail off your cell phone and compare it while I talked to him. We checked his tone and speech rhythms and we're relatively assured that he wasn't currently possessed at the time of the call." They actually have no way of knowing that, not without way more testing and a proper control subject but Dean doesn't need to know that. "We should check when he gets here though. Better safe than sorry."

"You can tell if someone is possessed by their speech rhythms?" Sam stares at her.

"Well…it's experimental and Bobby's the only one we've tried it on but we think it'll work." Chloe shrugs and there's another knock on the door. "You're being awfully rude you know."

Before Dean can say anything Chloe steps forward and pulls the door open, then freezes. "You can't just open the door." Dean grabs her arm and pulls her behind him, shielding her from whatever it is with his body. When he finally looks up, he's surprised to see a woman standing there. "Can I help you?"

"Hi," she says surprised and confused.

"Hi." Dean wonders for a second if she's selling something or maybe her car's got a flat tire, he's hoping it's not a flat tire because he really doesn't feel like changing a tire right now.

"Chloe?" The woman looks over Dean's shoulder and he realizes that a flat tire would be much better.

"Hey Lois." Chloe steps out from behind Dean and the woman at the door, Lois, launches forward and throws her arms around Chloe.

"You've got to stop faking your death," Lois mumbles and Chloe laughs even as tears fall down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry." Chloe's laugh turns to a sob and Dean closes the door.

"Damn right you are." Lois pulls back. "And because you're so sorry, you're going to explain what's going on and who the hell all these people are right?"

Chloe hesitates briefly, looking around the room, her eyes settling on Dean who shrugs. The cats out of the bag now, it's up to Chloe if she wants to spill the rest of the beans. The look doesn't go unnoticed by Lois who is now studying Dean with a strange sort of intensity. "Yeah, I'll tell you everything." Chloe regains Lois' attention and brings her over to the couch, where she proceeds to tell her the whole story.

Two hours later, Chloe stares at Lois who isn't saying anything at all, which is definitely a first. She bites her lip and wonders if maybe this time it's too much for even Lois to handle. "Well, first things first." Lois looks around the cabin at everyone assembled. "I'm in this now, no more secret plans, no more hiding things from me, you're my family and family takes care of family so… I'm in this."

"OK." Chloe knows better than to argue with Lois on something like this.

"Secondly… no more faking your death. Seriously, you're like the boy who cried wolf," she points out, a small smile forcing its way onto her face. "I mean this is like the fourth time you've died; I swear I'm not coming to your next funeral."

Chloe barks out another laugh and throws her arms around the neck of her cousin again, glad in the midst of everything else apocalyptic falling down around her ears, she can always count on Lois to be Lois.

"Oliver should be here shortly. I called when Lois got here, he would have left right away," Castiel tells them.

Chloe cringes. She'd heard them on the phone. She knew Castiel wasn't too happy that Lois managed to use Oliver to find them. Castiel's worried that someone else might make the same connection. "We'll figure out where to go from here."

"Good." Lois stands up. "Because I have a few choice words for my ex-boyfriend."

"Should I call him and warn him he might want to pack a cup?" Chloe smiles.

"Don't you dare," Lois threatens and looks around the place. "Do you think maybe we could go for a walk? I just need to stretch my legs." Chloe looks over at Dean and Lois definitely doesn't miss it this time.

They stare at each other for a beat again, having a silent conversation and then Dean stands and reaches for his jacket. "OK, let's go," he says.

"Wait, uh, hold on." Lois jumps up and holds out her hand, causing Dean to pause. "I mean Chloe and me, alone."

"Not going to happen." Dean smiles, pulling his jacket on.

"Look, this is cute, this over protective thing you've got going on here, but this is between me and my cousin. I just need…I want to have a private conversation with her," Lois explains.

"And I want to make sure that she stays alive." Dean grabs the door handle.

"Chloe will you please talk to Kevin Costner here." Lois throws her hands in the air.

"Kevin Costner?" Dean raises his eyebrows and Chloe puts a hand on his arm and pulls him into the kitchen.

"Look, it's just a walk. She's having a hard time processing this whole thing and at the moment the way things are going, she's never going to leave," Chloe says slowly.

"Well, she's not staying here," Dean says his eyes wide.

"I know. I love my cousin and I love that she looked for me and I'm sort of impressed that she found me, but I can't deal with being a pawn in the apocalypse and Lois. I just can't." Chloe smiles. "But if I can talk to her, assure her that you guys are doing what needs to be done, that I believe you can handle it, maybe she'll leave. And besides the occasional beer on the roof, I haven't been outside in months."

"Fine," Dean relents. "But I get to pick the movie every night for the rest of the month."

"Whatever you want." On impulse, Chloe stands up on her tip toes and kisses his cheek. "Thank you."

She turns around grabs her coat and Dean smiles, his cheek still slightly warm where her lips sat for only half a second. Castiel walks up beside him as Lois pulls her cousin from the house. Dean leans against the back of the couch and turns his head to see Castiel looking at him strangely. "What?" Dean glares.

"You were smiling," Castiel tells him confused as if Dean and smiling shouldn't go together. Then he looks at the door where Chloe is leaving. She turns around and mouths 'Thank You' and Dean nods, smiling again. "Oh." Castiel nods in understanding.

"What?" Dean glares at the angel but Castiel just looks at him knowingly.

"You look at Chloe the way that Oliver used to sometimes." Castiel shrugs as if he's just discovered the secrets to the universe.

"I don't look at her any particular way." Dean pushes off the edge of the couch and starts to walk away. He stops, turns back to Castiel, and frowns. "Oliver used to look at her a certain way?" Dean asks concerned.

"Sometimes." Castiel nods. "When he thought she was not looking. I would not worry about it. She never noticed him." He pauses and thinks about something. "If it makes you feel better, she never notices you either."

Dean stares at the angel wondering how he managed to live with Chloe for almost a year and still not pick up on certain particular human traits, like tact. "Oh yeah, that makes me feel so much better." Dean claps Castiel on the back. "Thanks buddy." He walks away.

"You are welcome." Castiel smiles, truly believing that he just did a good deed. Neither of them notice that Chloe's cell phone is sitting forgotten on the table.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe slips her arm through Lois' as they walk down a slightly over grown path through the woods. She couldn't tell from her perch on the roof how truly beautiful it is out here. God's country, Dean had called it one night, and not ironically. "I really am sorry." Chloe turns to Lois. For someone who wanted to take a walk so they could talk, she's not saying much. "I never wanted to put you through that again but if they thought I was alive, they might have used you to get to me."

"Yes, I suppose they would do something like that." Lois nods slowly before turning to Chloe. Chloe barely has time to register surprise when Lois' eyes turn completely black and she reaches out lightening fast, grabbing Chloe's wrist and holding her in place. "I told you I'd be back."

"Mara," Chloe breaths out, remembering the words of the demon from the Watchtower.

Mara smiles at her with Lois' smile and Chloe wants to throw up, she wants to scream but she can't do either. "I got someone whose been dying to meet you." Mara grabs the back of Chloe's neck and slams her head into a tree. "We really shouldn't keep him waiting." She lets Chloe's body crumble to the ground unconscious and then looks up as two men step out from behind the trees.

"Take her, he's waiting." Mara glances down at Chloe disgusted. "Wait, hit me. I have to go back to that house and tell them that I was ambushed, they're never going to believe it unless you hit me."

The man on the right steps up and hits Lois clean across the jaw. She reaches out and slams her elbow into his gut and he looks up at her confused.

"Sorry, habit." He grunts at her. "Again," she orders.

He's a little bit weary this time but he hits her again, harder and her head snaps to the side. He grabs her hair before she can recover and shoves her to the ground.

"Nice." Mara spits some blood from her split lip, looks at the raw scratches on her arms and knees and smiles. "Maybe later we can have a different kind of fun with this body." The man smiles. "Go, he's waiting." Mara pulls herself to her feet and the men grab Chloe and drag her off.

________

__

_Will I live tomorrow?_

_Well, I just can't say_

_Will I live tomorrow?_

_Well, I just can't say_

_But I know for sure_

_I don't live today_

_-Jimi Hendrix_


	5. Sympathy For The Devil

**Sympathy For the Devil**

_I watched with glee_

_While your Kings and Queens_

_Fought for ten decades_

_For the Gods they made_

**September 25, 2010**

A man emerges from the shadows. Any other time in any other place Chloe would assume he was a normal guy, a regular guy. He's got slightly shaggy blonde hair, he's wearing jeans and an open button-up over an old faded t-shirt, stubble on his cheeks. In another life he might have worked a blue collar job in construction or as a mechanic. Not anymore. Chloe knows he's not a normal guy. She gets the same feeling off of him as she did around Barbas only…worse. "God is Dead," he says simply, staring straight at her.

As entrances go, Chloe has to give him points for style; it's hard to top that.

He's reading from a book and continues on. "God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?" He snaps the book closed and Chloe can't help but flinch at the sound, the finality of it. "Do you know who wrote that?" He kneels down in front of her and she nods.

"Nietzsche." Her voice isn't as strong as she wants it to be but her gaze doesn't waver.

"Very good." The man smiles at her and chills run up and down Chloe's spine. "Well, he had a little help of course. I mean I don't like to brag but…who am I kidding. I love to brag." He slides down until he's sitting on the floor, Indian style in front of her, their knees touching.

She had woken up alone in what appeared to be some sort of basement. The floor under her butt is cold and slightly damp. The whole room gives off a scent of mold and fabric softener. She's assuming somewhere off in the dark shadows there's probably a washer and dryer. "Who are you?" Chloe asks.

"You know the answer to that." He says to her quietly but her brow furrows in sincere confusion. "No?" He tilts his head and snaps his fingers.

They aren't in the dingy basement any longer. It's dark out, night time. It looks like they're outside in some sort of large open space and they seem to be standing backstage at a concert. The sounds of crazed screaming envelops them and Chloe can barely hear the man next to her. "Ah, 1969, this was a very good year." He looks at Chloe with a sort of giddy anticipation as the band on stage starts up another song.

_It's the freaking Rolling Stones, _Chloe realizes with a start as she recognizes the man out front. Mick Jagger starts to sing, and there's no doubt in Chloe's mind that he really is Mick Jagger and they really are in 1969.

_Please allow me to introduce myself,_

_I'm a man of wealth and taste._

_I've been around for a long, long year,_

_stole many a man's soul and faith._

_And I was round when Jesus Christ_

_Had his moment of doubt and pain_

_Made damn sure that Pilate_

_Washed his hands and sealed his fate_

Chloe swallows as she recognizes the song. _Sympathy for the Devil_.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean opens the door to see Oliver standing on the other side. He's dressed down, jeans and a hoodie, his hands are in his back pocket, his shoulders pushed up to his ears and he's looking up through his eyelashes almost coyly in a way that says, "You can't really be mad at me can you?"

"Yeah that'll probably work better on Lois." Dean snorts and turns back letting Oliver inside.

"In my defense, Chloe is normally the one who cleans up my paper trail." Oliver says before anyone can blame him. He closes the door behind him as he walks into the room. "Where is she by the way?"

"Chloe took Lois for a walk, in what's likely a futile attempt to get her to go back home and trust us to take care of her." Sam explains.

"Good luck with that." Oliver snorts and plops himself down in a kitchen chair. "I've known Lois for about five years now, dated her for one and she still doesn't trust me to keep Chloe safe."

Dean looks at Sam helplessly and even Castiel looks slightly horrified at the thought of Lois sticking around for much longer. Dean turns to the kitchen and grabs a handful of beers, passing one off to Sam and another to Oliver.

"What do we do now?" Castiel asks. "If Lois can find us, they can find us."

"Lois is like a dog with a bone, when she's after something she won't stop until she gets it." Oliver shakes his head.

"And you don't think the demons really want to find Chloe, or the angels?" Castiel glares. "You don't think they would do anything to find her? Lois wrangled some interns and followed you around for a few weeks. They won't bother with all that; they will just kidnap you and torture you."

"You think I'd give her up?" Oliver leans forward bristling at the accusation.

"You'd give her up." Dean sips his beer, refusing to look directly at Oliver. "You might last a few days." He pushes himself off the wall. "But you'd give her up, trust me." He walks into the kitchen for another beer but never makes it. The door flies open and Lois tumbles through. Her shirt is streaked with dirt and blood, her lip is split open and an angry bruise is forming on her jaw.

"They took her." She says with a sob, gripping the door handle for support as she tries and fails to suck in much needed air. Dean slams the empty beer bottle on the counter and in two steps is right in front of her, grabbing her shoulders, forcing her to look at him, to focus on him.

"Who took her?" He asks quietly. "I need you to breathe Lois; can you do that for me, breathe and tell me who took Chloe?"

"These guys. They came out of the woods." She reaches up and touches her lip. "They hit me and they took her." Dean's jaw clenches as Lois takes a deep breath. "Their eyes…they were black."

"Demons." Sam grabs his jacket and Castiel is halfway to the door.

"Everything you said was true. I mean I believed you but I didn't really believe you." Lois is babbling and Dean has to quickly regain control of the situation before he completely loses her.

"Did you see where they took her? Where they went?" Dean asks.

"No, I…we were talking, just talking and then she was gone." Lois wraps her arms around her chest and Dean sighs, guiding her over to a chair and sitting her down.

"Stay here." Dean tells her. "Lois, look at me. Stay here. I'm going to lock all the doors; you don't open them for anyone except us. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Lois nods, dragging her knees up to her chest. "Yes."

"Let's go." Dean calls out, his foot halfway out the door already. He doesn't bother to look and see if any one follows.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Say my name." The man is whispering in Chloe's ear, over the roar of the crowd and the screech of the amps. He's whispering and Chloe can hear him perfectly, like magic. She closes her eyes and shakes her head, clinging to a belief in that old childhood notion that, as long as she doesn't say it, it's not real. "Say it out loud for the whole class." The man says again and his fingers are digging into her elbow now. The pain forces her eyes open and she turns to him with an angry gasp.

"Lucifer." She breathes out and for one second the world actually stops. The air is completely still, they're standing in an empty field, the concert, the crowd all of it is gone. There's no sounds anywhere, it's almost like they're standing in some sort of frozen vacuum, and she's not even breathing. Then he smiles at her and she's slammed back to the concert, back to the stage and she can hear Mick singing again and the crowd and she can smell the night air and feel a light breeze, like nothing happened but something happened. She looks around and she doesn't understand how no one else felt it, how no one else even noticed that two seconds ago the entire world just shifted. Then she realizes, it was only just her world and she has the uncontrollable urge to cry.

_Pleased to meet you,_

_Hope you guess my name._

_Oh yeah, but what's puzzling you_

_Is the nature of my game._

Lucifer is looking at her amused andChloe's eyes narrow. She yanks her arm away from him and the music stops. Chloe turns to see a huge fight breaking out behind her and she makes the connections in her head. 1969, an outdoor Stones Concert. They're at Altamont, a concert famous for the fact that it was drenched in violence; and a multitude of riot level fights broke out that ended with four people dead. _Of course,_ Chloe thinks, _he brings me here._

"This wasn't my doing actually." He looks out into the crowd and then turns to Chloe as if he's reading her mind, which he probably is for all she knows. "No, this was all you guys. Sometimes you're far more ruthless then I ever could be."

Perhaps his accusation rings a little bit too true and Chloe glares at him again. He's just toying with her, like a cat batting around a mouse before he decides he's hungry enough to eat it. Chloe's not sure how the mice feel but she'd much rather just get right to the eating part, doesn't really want to drag this out anymore than she absolutely has to. "What are we doing here?" She asks him as the music starts up again. "Are you just messing with me? Trying to show off?"

"No." His smile disappears and as suddenly as they left, they're back in the basement. "I just wanted to talk to you. I'm sorry I thought you'd like the flash, the spectacle. Humans tend to really go for that sort of thing."

"If you want to talk to me," Chloe says feeling more confident than she actually is as she sits down on the cold concrete ground, crossing her legs. "Then talk."

He assesses her for a second and then his smile is back. He sits in front of her, crossing his own legs, their knees once again touching. "Okay, then, let's talk."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

They'd searched the entire forest and there was no sign of her. Dean doesn't relish going back to the cabin empty handed but they need to regroup. He needs to talk to Lois ask her exactly what she saw, maybe there's a clue they missed, something, anything that might lead them to Chloe.

"You lost her?" Bobby asks when the door opens and Dean stops in the doorway, the others stopping behind him outside. Bobby's wheelchair is facing the door, his accusing face glaring at the boys in a way that is at the same time all too familiar and completely foreign to Dean.

"Bobby?" Dean drops his jacket in the chair and turns to Lois. "What part of 'let no one in unless it's us' didn't you understand?"

"He said he was a friend." Lois defends herself. "He said he could help."

Dean looks back over at Bobby and scrutinizes him. He offers his old friend a very wide berth as he walks around the table to his bag. "No offense." Dean says pulling out a plastic bottle. "But I'm gonna have to ask you to drink this." Dean tosses the bottle to Bobby who catches it expertly and flips it over, glancing at the cross on the front. "It's just we've had a bit of a pest problem lately."

Bobby snorts and twists the cap off the bottle, taking a deep chug and then setting it on the table. "Happy?"

Dean smiles. "Thank God." He takes two steps forward and claps Bobby on the back in relief.

Bobby nods then reaches up and smacks Dean in the head. "You lost her?" He asks again.

"Ow." Dean rubs his head and glares. "If you want to get technical, Lois lost her." Dean regrets it as soon as the words are out of his mouth and Lois utters a pathetic whimper. "We'll find her." Dean assures the woman and she nods without really believing him. Dean senses this and he walks over to her, squatting down until they're eye to eye. "I promise you I will find her and bring her back home."

"OK." Lois sniffs and wipes her eyes. "I'm going to call Clark." She stands up and walks out of the room.

"You can't promise her stuff like that Dean." Sam says as Lois pulls out a phone and starts talking. "We have no leads, they left us no trail, Castiel can't find her because of the symbols, you think she's just going to call us and tell us where she is so we can go pick her up?"

"I don't know." Dean snaps. "But we've got to do something. I'm not just going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs while she's out there…" Sam sighs and Dean takes a deep breath. "I promised her we could keep her safe and I lost her."

"OK." Sam runs a hand through his hair. "Where do we even start?"

"We could use the website." Bobby says and everyone turns to him confused.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Sam and Dean stare in awe at the computer. "She did it." Sam says shaking his head. Chloe had somehow created a comprehensive encyclopedia of all things Supernatural. She used Oracle to pull whatever reliable information they could find off the web and added in her own things from John's journal and Sam's books. "It's not just information either, it's kind of like a social networking site meets Wikipedia." Sam says amazed as he works his way through the site.

"She wanted it to be a place where Hunters could come and ask for help or guidance or even advertise jobs. Also, they have the ability to add or update information on current entries or even create their own." Bobby explains.

"Sort of like an online hunter's journal?" Dean looks up at Bobby.

"No, it's more like everyone's online hunters journals." Sam looks up at Bobby. "How did she do this in two weeks?"

"A sentient AI, a supercomputer and insomnia." Bobby offers and Sam smiles. "Plus quite a bit of help from yours truly."

"It's already been updated. How does anyone even know about it?" Dean asks scrolling through page after page of articles Hunters have added in the past few days.

"She linked it to all the usual sites hunters go to. We used word of mouth." Bobby shrugs. "I told some people, they told some people."

"So what do we do?" Sam asks.

"I can put up a bulletin. In five minutes, I can have a hunter in every state on the lookout for her." Bobby grabs Chloe's computer and starts typing.

"I didn't realize you were so tech savvy." Sam offers him impressed.

"Yeah well I've quite a bit of time on my hands lately." He nods down to the wheelchair. "Don't get out much anymore." He adds for Oliver's benefit. "There." He looks up satisfied with himself. "In a few minutes-"

He's interrupted when the front door flings open and suddenly Bart is standing there in front of them. "You lost her?" His ire is directed solely at Dean and he remembers what Bart told him the first time they met. _"If anything happens to her you can try to run, but I'll chase you and there's no doubt in my mind I'll catch you. There is no place on this earth you can hide that I can't find you."_ Dean swallows visibly. "You lost her?" Bart asks again and walks slowly toward Dean. He stops when he sees Oliver and changes course. "And you knew about this and didn't even bother to tell us?"

"How did you find out?" Oliver asks him confused.

Bart holds up his phone. "I get update alerts from the website." He waves the phone. "So do you guys have a plan or are you just sitting around and hoping she calls?"

Sam offers Dean an amused smile and he groans. "I'm working on it."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Do you know why everyone wants you?" Lucifer asks Chloe; his tone is relaxed, conversational almost, like they're sitting across from each other at a coffee shop. "The angels, the demons, the Winchesters?"

"My quick wit and dazzling smile?" Chloe offers him an example of said dazzling smile and much to her surprise, he smiles back. This unsettles her and she swallows hard. She's not sure how much he knows about her or how much he knows about anything and she's not going to be the one to let the devil himself in on the 'Chloe is supposed to heal God' plan if he's still in the dark. "No, I don't." She lies easily.

He tilts his head and the way he looks at her let's Chloe know that he knows she's lying. He knows that she knows exactly why everyone wants her but he doesn't call her on it, he lets it go. "Allow me to enlighten you then. Give you a little history lesson."

"I always hated history. I'm generally more concerned with the here and now. I was a journalism major you know, current events and all that." Chloe shrugs.

"That's the problem with young people today, no sense of the past. No sense of how you got where you are. Don't you want to know how you got where you are now?" Lucifer shakes his head.

"You brought me here." She reminds him.

"I mean that in a broader sense." He smiles and Chloe has to stop herself from smiling back.

"OK then, how did I get here?" Chloe asks.

"Once upon a time, there was a great man named Solomon. He was a King actually. He ruled over all of Israel. He was the son of David, Slayer of Goliath. Solomon prayed to God one day for an understanding heart so that he could judge his people. God granted Solomon his prayer. He was given the wisdom and understanding to dispense justice in even the most difficult of situations. I'm sure you know the story of the baby?"

"Yeah." Chloe nods, wondering what Solomon has to do with her. "There were two women fighting over a baby and Solomon said to cut the baby in half. The woman who refused, who would rather give up the baby then see it come to harm, was the true mother and he granted her the child."

"So you do know some history." The devil smiles at Chloe almost as if he's pleased and Chloe hates that he seems pleased with her.

"You know that old saying, God works in mysterious ways?" Chloe nods. "Solomon was a wise man this is true, but his wisdom did not come from confidence or faith, or even strength of character. His wisdom came from knowing that he was right, knowing the future. He made the right decisions because he'd already seen what decisions were going to be made."

"He was a prophet." Chloe whispers in understanding.

"That he was." Lucifer nods. "His prophecies would come to him in his dreams. Every night Solomon would dream about the answers to the questions that he would one day face and every day he would wake up and he would recall these dreams to the royal scribe so that there was a record whenever these problems came up. Generally he dreamed no more than two weeks ahead, but one night he dreamed of something much further into the future. He dreamed of the end of the world."

Lucifer knows how to tell a story. Chloe's very interested now. "The morning after he dreamed that horrible dream, he recounted it to his scribe as he always did but he didn't put it with the others. Instead he had an ornate box commissioned; a box that he paid quite a bit to make sure could never be opened. He sealed the prophecy in this box, he laid the box in a Temple then buried the Temple under a mountain and forbid the scribe to ever make mention of it again."

"If he locked it in a box, put the box in a Temple and buried the Temple, how do you know it exists, much less what it says?" Chloe glares at Lucifer.

"While he forbid the scribe from talking about the prophecy, he didn't say anything about writing it down and the scribe believed that the world needed to know so he made seven copies and scattered them around the world, so he could be assured they would endure until the time they were needed."

Chloe narrows her eyes at him. "So what? You brought me all the way here, to tell me that somewhere there's a prophecy about the end of the world?" Chloe snorts at him. "There are 8 million prophecies about the end of the world. Just Google Apocalypse."

"You misunderstand my dear; this particular prophecy is not just about the end of the world." He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair out of her face. Chloe has to force herself not to flinch, but the disgust is obvious in her eyes. "This particular prophecy is about you."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"The guys are on the way." Bart hangs up his phone and looks over at Oliver who's sitting with Lois, trying to keep her calm. "And quick warning, they're pretty pissed at you."

"Of course they are." Oliver shakes his head. "But not angry enough to turn down my offer to send the plane for them."

"They're mad Ollie, not stupid." Bart shakes his head and looks at Dean with an amused expression. He walks further into the living room to where Dean, Sam and Bobby are arguing with Castiel over something. "How's the plan coming?" He flops down next to Sam and pulls out his phone when it beeps at him.

"We're still working on it." Dean growls.

"Huh." Bart sits up straighter. "That's strange." He types something rapidly into the phone.

"What?" Sam asks him absentmindedly.

"It's Clark, wanting to know if I've heard from Lois." Bart is still typing and doesn't notice when Dean and Sam both turn to look at him. "Apparently he hasn't heard from her since last night and she's not answering her phone."

"She called him this morning." Dean points out confused. "I watched her dial the phone and talk to…someone." Dean says.

"Well it wasn't Clark." Bart shakes his head not fully understanding the problem.

Castiel stands up and stares intently at Lois who's pulling at the sleeves of her shirt, her knees up to her chest as Oliver talks soothingly to her. "How could they have found her Cass?" Dean stands up. "It's not just her bones or this house; you said you warded the woods around us, you said they couldn't find her."

"They couldn't have." Castiel shakes his head. "The protection we put on this place, there's no way that they could have found it unless they knew it was here."

"And they couldn't have known it was here unless they had someone on the inside." Sam stands up and Bart finally looks up from his phone and realizes that something's going on.

Dean looks at Lois then to Sam. "When she first got here, did we-"

"No." Sam shakes his head.

"Did we what?" Bart asks. "What didn't we do?" Dean's already on the move.

"Dean?" Oliver looks up confused as the man storms into the kitchen and heads straight for Lois. Dean ignores Oliver in favor of bestowing all his attention on Lois. In three strides he reaches her and when she opens her mouth, a look of brief amusement crosses her face right before Dean backhands her so hard she flies off of her seat and onto the floor. "Dean." Oliver's chair goes sliding as he stands up to intervene.

"Where is she?" Dean pants. There's a look of wild desperation on his face that scares Oliver. He knows that face; he's had that face his fair share of times in his life. He takes a step forward.

"Don't." Oliver freezes. Not at the sound of Sam's voice behind him, but at the sound of the gun cocking in his ear.

Lois whimpers a bit. "Ollie." She croaks out as tears roll down her face. Dean pulls her up roughly by the front of her shirt.

He grabs her by the neck and slams her up against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. "Where is she?" Dean asks again.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Lois sobs. "Please."

"Seriously guys, what's going on?" Oliver's fingers are itching but he has no doubt that if he even moves an inch, Sam will shoot him.

Dean reaches behind him to the table and picks up the plastic bottle of holy water that he'd made Bobby drink from earlier. "What are you doing?" Lois whispers.

"I'm not going to ask you again." Dean says and Lois winks at him before turning to Oliver.

"Oliver please, he's hurting me." She pleads.

"Have it your way." Dean says forcing Lois' mouth open and pouring the holy water down her throat.

Oliver steps backward amazed when Lois screams an unearthly scream and from the inside of her mouth steam hisses and spits into the air. Dean relaxes his grip and Lois' body falls to the floor. "Tie her up." Dean steps back and drops the now empty bottle to the table

"What the hell was that?" Bart asks just staring at the scene.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"It's about me?" Chloe asks, looking up into Lucifer's eyes confused. "Like it mentions me by name?"

"It's not as clear as that." He shakes his head.

"So it could be about someone else then?" Chloe's voice is hopeful, optimistic and this is funny to Lucifer.

"No, make no mistake, it's about you." Lucifer tells her. "Even if it wasn't before, it is now."

"I don't understand." Chloe really doesn't understand.

"The prophecy is not terribly specific. It mentions someone, a key player in the apocalypse, but it's not so helpful as to come with a physical description. Or even a name. Castiel found you and there was something about you, something deep in your bones." Lucifer grabs her wrist and squeezes until she feels her bones grind together. "Something about you made him believe that you were the one the prophecy spoke of. Regardless of whether or not you were the one that Solomon dreamed of-Castiel's mere belief that it is you makes the angel's believe that it's you, which makes the demons believe that it's you-it's a viscous cycle really."

"What do you believe?" Chloe asks, dreading the answer.

"What I believe is immaterial. You_ became_ the person the prophecy is about the minute they believed you were the person the prophecy is about." Lucifer tells her. "It doesn't hurt that you have those nifty carvings on your bones that keep you annoyingly hidden from me, or that you just so happen to possess the very power needed to 'heal God'."

Chloe swallows, he knows far more than she would have liked, but she somehow feels slightly better knowing that the carvings keep her hidden from him at the very least. "So what does this prophecy say about me then?"

"It says that when the seals break and devil rises…" He winks at her and she resists the urge to puke. "When the horsemen ride and the world burns, one will come along, a chosen one who will have the power to heal God, quell the revolution, and stop the apocalypse."

"Right then, no pressure." Chloe slumps in despair. "So that's why all of you want me dead. I mean the angels put a lot of time and energy into this plan, they can't risk me healing God and ruining everything." Chloe scoffs. "And you guys, maybe it wasn't your plan to start with but I suppose you intend to take full advantage of God's absence and for that you need to make sure I'm out of the way." Chloe fills in the blanks.

"Basically right, except one little detail." Lucifer pulls himself to his feet. "We don't want you dead."

"But…" Chloe stops and thinks back to when this all began, in the Watchtower. The angels, Zachariah really, ordered her death but the demons never tried to kill her. She recalls Barbas saying _"We need her alive." _And when Zachariah gave Adriel the order to kill her he'd said, _"Not going to happen."_. She looks up at Lucifer's smug face and has a very scary thought that maybe they never intended to kill her, maybe they were actually planning on protecting her in their own way. "Why? Why don't you want me dead? If I heal God, I'll ruin your plans too."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Ten minutes later, Sam's finishing the touches to the devil's trap on the floor around the chair and Dean pulls the ropes around Lois' wrist a little too tightly causing her to wake up. "Glad you could join us." He glares at her and takes a step back.

"Her throat is going to be raw for days you know." Lois says a sadistic hint of laughter in her voice as her eyes flood completely black.

"Who are you?" Dean paces back and forth. "Who am I talking to here? 'Cause it's obviously not Lois."

"Mara." She smiles and looks over Dean's shoulder. "Castiel, long time no see."

"Mara." Castiel nods at her and Dean turns around to raise his eyebrows at the angel.

"You two know each other?" Dean asks him.

"Oh we go way back." Mara smiles. "Back when God still cared about the humans. Back when he still assigned guardian angels."

Sam frowns. "There were actually guardian angels?"

"Oh yeah. Castiel was mine." Mara tilts her head at Castiel. "Didn't really do that good a job there, did you? Was I the reason you got reassigned?"

"Yes." Castiel answers her honestly.

"You see, once up a time, I was a nun." Mara tells Sam and Dean. "A long time ago, I lived my life in service of God. I loved him and I thought that he loved me. I thought that all of the time that I spent devoting myself to him, giving my entire life over to him meant something to him. I got my own guardian angel and I had a gift, the gift to see into a person's soul, to see their true self, see if they were inherently good or evil. I thought I was special. But I wasn't. I wasted away in a convent when I could have been helping him, serving him. Then one day a man came to me. He told me the truth, he opened my eyes and I was saved."

"Lucifer?" Sam asks her.

"He turned me himself. Whispered sweet nothings in my ear. He literally led me into temptation." Mara smiles at the memory. "And where was my angel when all this was happening you might ask?" Castiel flinches.

"I tried to help you, I tried to save you." Castiel protests.

"Not hard enough." Mara snaps and for a second Dean thinks she's angry at Castiel for failing to save her from this life.

"This is all very…enlightening." Dean turns away from Castiel. "But not important. Where is Chloe?"

"Where do you think, _he's_ got her." Mara's face twists up in a smile and Dean can hear reverence and awe in her voice, it chills him. "But don't worry _he's_ playing nice."

"_He," _Dean says in disgust, "Wants to kill her. You really expect us to believe he's playing nice." He growls out

"You've got your bad guys mixed up on this one." Mara tells him. "We're not the ones who want her dead. That's all angel boy and his family." Everyone turns to look at Castiel.

"If he doesn't want to kill her, what does he want with her?" Sam steps forward.

"He just wants to talk, whisper sweet nothings in _her_ ear." Mara looks over at Castiel and he smacks her unable to control himself. She just laughs, her tongue reaching out to lick her lip. "There are some things he feels she needs to know. Things that others might be keeping from her. When he's done, you'll get her back, basically in the same condition as before."

Dean stares at Mara for a second, then nods and stands up, backing away. "OK Sammy." He turns away from the demon completely and Sam takes his place.

"Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino.…" Sam starts his exorcism.

"Dean." Castiel grabs his arm. "We can't just let her go."

Dean stares at Castiel. "They know where we are, the cat's already out of the bag and they have Chloe, what more damage can she do?" He points out. "Besides, what are you going to do, kill Chloe's cousin?" Castiel winces. "I didn't think so."

"So what do we do now?" Oliver asks trying not to pay attention as Sam's chanting gets louder.

Dean shakes his head, unable to believe he's about to utter these words. "We wait for Chloe to call us."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Prophecies are a tricky thing, especially ones written in long dead languages. We didn't always have the sheer volume of words that you have now. Our prose was rather limited so many of the words we did have, more often than not had a double meaning. One word in particular in this case which just happens to be the crux of this prophecy could mean two completely different things." Lucifer stares down at her and this is what he's been waiting to tell her. Chloe just knows it.

"What word?"

"Ratsach" Lucifer tells her. "The prophecy says that you will _'ratsach'_ , noble, loyal, faithful little soldier that he is, chooses to believe that the word translates to heal, to give life, a rebirth." Lucifer chuckles.

"It has another meaning?" Chloe asks, knowing that this is going to end badly but she can't bring herself to stop asking questions.

"Yes." He nods at her. "Death." The room starts to get smaller, like the walls are pressing in on Chloe. She's having trouble breathing, her lungs are tight and her chest is burning with every breath she actually manages to suck in. "Castiel believes the prophecy says that your actions will bring about the rebirth of God. That you'll heal him and you'll all live happily ever after, ride off into the sunset."

"And you? What do you believe?" Her question is but a whisper, afraid she already knows the answer.

"That your actions will bring about the death of God, that you are not destined to heal God, Chloe Sullivan but to kill him."

Chloe is sucking in less and less air with every word he utters. She knows he's telling her the truth, at least the truth the way he sees it, as he believes it. He tosses her the book he was reading from before-Nietzsche and it slides across the concrete before hitting her leg and stopping. The lack of oxygen reaches her brain and Chloe's vision starts to recede until it's nothing more than a small pin prick of light.

"Thus endeth the lesson." Lucifer tells her before turning away and climbing up the steps.

Chloe passes out.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**September 26, 2010**

Chloe opens her eyes and blinks. The concrete floor beneath her is still cold and slightly damp. Her body feels heavy, her limbs like they're full of lead. Slowly she pulls her hands up along her sides, her fingers sliding, dragging along the ground. She braces herself against the floor and pushes herself up to a sitting position, folding her legs until she's sitting Indian style.

There's sunlight streaming through the lone window set at the top the east facing basement wall. It seems strange to her that the sun would still be shining, that the world would still be turning. As she watches the dust particles dance in the sunlight, for one brief fleeting moment she thinks that maybe everything that happened in the past two days was nothing more than a dream. Then her fingers brush against something and she looks down. Staring up at her is a battered, old, dog-eared copy of Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".

Chloe tentatively reaches out and grabs the book. She flips it open to a random page and looks down. _God is dead_. She slams the book shut, drops it like it burned her and scrambles to her feet. She sees the stairs and hurries over to them but pauses and turns back. Something makes her grab the book. She lifts it up and clutches it to her chest.

She's halfway up the steps when she hears scratching at the basement door. She pauses and looks around for some sort of weapon but there's nothing. She silently walks the rest of the way up the steps and reaches out for the doorknob. She turns it quickly and pulls the door open.

Expecting an army of demons or angels to reign down on her, she's pleasantly surprised when 150-pounds of white fur barrels into her. "Hey there." Chloe laughs despite the weight of dread in the pit of her stomach and runs her fingers through the dog's soft hair. She crouches down to get a good look at it and her fingers pause. There's blood staining the fur around its mouth and slowly, cautiously she stands and takes a few steps back. The dog merely looks at her and offers a pathetic whine before walking away, almost like it wants her to follow, so she does.

The dog walks down the hall and Chloe takes a moment to absorb her surroundings. She's in what appears to be a house, a regular suburban house at that. Through a doorway she can see a bedroom-bed unmade, linens and pillows strewn about as if someone just woke up and hasn't had time to make the bed yet. She can hear the dog whining from another room and she moves to catch up, passing what looks like a kitchen, half-eaten breakfast dishes still sitting on the table. They've been there a while, much longer than just the morning if the mold on the bread is anything to go by.

There's a stale somewhat rotten smell in the air and she covers her mouth as she moves further through the house and finds a deserted dining room which is just about normal in any home. She spies what she suspects is a picture window and walks over, pushing the curtains aside. She finds herself on a random street in a picturesque neighborhood; the house across the road has two kids playing chase in the yard. She steps back, suddenly slightly freaked out. She's positive that these people, the neighbors, have no idea that the Devil himself was next door playing house a mere eight hours before.

The dog whines again and Chloe turns her attention in his direction. "What is it boy?" She walks slowly, almost as if she knows she isn't going to like what she sees. She passes through the entryway from the dining room into the living room. The television is on, four women are sitting around a table drinking coffee and talking about something that Chloe could honestly not care less about.

What Chloe does care about is the man on the couch. He's not moving. This, Chloe discovers, is the reason for the dog's distress. Chloe walks over and turns off the television before making her way around the coffee table. The dog puts his front paws on the sofa and nudges the man in the chest with his nose and the man's head flops back, hitting the back of the sofa.

Chloe jumps as a strange gurgle breaks the newly silent room and a wriggling mass of what looks like maggots spill out of the large gash in the man's neck that's spanning from ear to ear. They tumble onto the blood soaked t-shirt he's wearing. Chloe's hand goes to her mouth and she backs up until her legs crash into the coffee table. The dog wines even louder and Chloe turns around and empties the entire contents of her stomach onto the carpet.

The dog abandons the man on the sofa, obviously recognizing a lost cause and walks over to Chloe nudging her side gently as she dry heaves until she can finally catch her breath. She sucks in air desperately and the dog practically climbs into her lap. Chloe pats his head, "I'm okay, I'm okay." She pants, trying to get her breathing under control.

She reaches in her pocket for her phone and when she comes up empty, realizes she left it lying on the table at the cabin. She steals a glance over at the man on the sofa and crawls toward him, closing her eyes as she digs in his pocket pulling out his phone. She digs through the pile of mail on the coffee table, takes a random envelope, and somehow with shaking fingers she manages to type the address of where she is with a quick note and hits send.

Chloe turns back to the dog and drops the envelope on the table. "Come on boy." She slides her fingers under the collar and pulls herself to her feet. "Let's go get you cleaned up."

Chloe walks the dog numbly to the kitchen and grabs a rag from beside the sink. Wetting the cloth, she crouches down and wipes away all the blood that she can. She pauses suddenly overcome, grabs the dog's face, leans her forehead against his and starts to sob. She sinks down against the kitchen cabinets and brings her knees to her chest as the sobs take over her body. Her fingers tighten around the spine of the book that she didn't even realize she was still holding. She lifts her head and turns it to the side, trying to get her tears under control and freezes. The sobbing stops immediately.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean follows the directions Sam gave him but it seems wrong. He's in the middle of a large neighborhood. Two blocks ago, he interrupted an impromptu street hockey game between a bunch of twelve-year-olds who looked like their biggest worry was what they were going to have for dinner that night. He slows as he takes a right turn onto the street where Chloe's message said she is and reads the house numbers.

He stops in front of 1630 and stares at it. It looks innocuous enough-large wraparound porch, two rocking chairs out front, and he thinks in this neighborhood they might have actually been used. In his mind he can see a husband and wife sipping iced tea while watching their kids play in the yard.

He turns off the car and gets out, looking both ways as he climbs up the walk. With one hand on the gun in his waistband his other hand is poised to knock, when he sees that the door is just slightly ajar. He slowly pushes the door open and steps in the house. The first thing he notices is the smell and he resists the urge to gag. Against his better judgment he calls out. "Chloe?" The house is eerily quiet and the smell is getting stronger the further into the house he gets.

It doesn't take long to see why. There's a man. He's sitting on the couch, his cloudy dead stare fixed on the TV screen. His throat slit from ear to ear. His shirt soaked in his own blood, maggots spilling out of the wound. Dean slips past him and into the kitchen where he sees Chloe sitting on the floor, leaning up against the bottom cabinets. She looks relatively unscathed. He can see no visible bruises or open wounds, she looks fine actually except for the fact that she's in a trance, staring off to the side. There's a book clutched in her fingers, she's got a white knuckled grip on it and her other hand is tangled in the fur of the dog sitting patiently at her side.

"Chloe." He takes his hand off the gun and squats down in front of her. "Chloe are you okay?" It takes her a second to register his presence. Her eyes never lift to look at him, but she nods. "Ok, okay we need to get out of here."

She nods again but doesn't make a move. It had taken him far longer than he liked to convince everyone else to honor Chloe's request and let him go alone. At the time he had no idea why she'd wanted him and only him but now he thinks he understands. She didn't want anyone else to see this or to see her like this. The idea that she trusts him enough makes him all the more pissed off that he wasn't able to stop it from happening in the first place.

Her eyes stay fixed on a spot over his shoulder and he turns around and sees what she's been staring at. Huddled in the corner is the lifeless body of a mother, cradling the equally lifeless body of her son. The kid looks no older than nine or ten and Dean curses. "Shit." He gets up and walks down the hall. After digging through the closet he pulls out a blanket and comes back to the kitchen to drape it over the mother and child. "Chloe, come on." Dean reaches out to grab her arm and the dog suddenly stands up to its full height and growls at him, showing all his teeth. "Whoa." He jumps back and holds up his hands in surrender.

At least this makes Chloe smile slightly. She tightens her grip in the dog's coat and he sits down immediately. "Come on." Dean says again and this time Chloe stands up. Her hand slips out of the dog's fur and onto his arm but her grip remains ironclad on the book as she follows him to the door. They've only taken a few steps when they realize the dog is following them.

"Go." Dean tries to shoo the dog away but it just bares its teeth at him again. "Go away." He says again more firmly and this time the dog barks.

Chloe slides her fingers back into the hair at the dog's neck and squeezes. The dog heels and Chloe looks from the animal to Dean and Dean groans.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The car stops. The dog whimpers. Dean stares out the window. They're back at the cabin, a three-hour drive and Chloe hasn't spoken one word. She did smile once. The dog had been in the backseat where Dean insisted it ride, since Chloe insisted it come back with them. After two hours of whimpering Dean finally allowed it to come up front and sit next to Chloe. It laid its head in her lap and she smiled and Dean knew in that moment that they now had a dog. Regardless of the fact that he's relatively sure the dog can and will tear his arm off in one bite should he try to keep it from Chloe, there's no way he's going to take something away from her if it makes her happy.

He cuts the engine and pulls out the keys. From the moment he realized she was gone, all he'd been able to think about was getting her back to the cabin, but now that he's there all he wants to do is take her as far away from this place as possible. He gets out and walks around the car and opens her door. Dean stares at Chloe for a second before reaching across her to unbuckle her seat belt. This time the dog merely growls at him which he sees as an improvement. "Come on." Dean curls his fingers around Chloe's elbow and pulls gently.

Chloe gets the hint and allows him to maneuver her out of the car, the dog following close behind them. She slides her fingers under the dog's collar and holds on tightly, like it's the only thing holding her up, or keeping her from floating away. Dean reaches back in and grabs the book she laid on the seat. He's not sure what's up with the book but obviously it's important to Chloe. He leads her and the dog toward the door and its flung open before they even gets halfway there.

Chloe's hand leaves the dog's collar to wrap around Dean's arm. She squeezes hard, her knuckles turn white and her breath starts to come faster and faster as everyone leaves the house en masse. She's not ready yet, can't handle all of them at once. She's not sure what to say to Lois and she knows the guys will have tons of questions, not to mention Clark; she's not even sure when he got there, Lois must have called him. Dean looks from Chloe who is obviously panicking and at the mob headed for them and stops, holding up his hand to tell the others to do the same.

Surprisingly they freeze. It might have something to do with his hand, it might have something to do with the death glare that he's giving them but they freeze. He shakes his head and Lois of all people, throat red and raw, limping slightly, but much more worried about Chloe than her own self, is the one to get the hint, grabbing Oliver's arm and pulling him back into the house. The others follow suit and Chloe's breathing evens out, her grip relaxes slightly on his arm and they start to walk again.

"Dean." Sam steps forward cautiously when they get inside and close the door.

"Not now Sammy." Dean shakes his head and brings Chloe up the stairs and into her room, the dog still trailing behind them.

He sits her down on the bed and lays the book on the nightstand. Chloe pats the mattress next to her and the dog doesn't need to be told twice. He jumps up after her, laying his head in her lap and closing his eyes. Dean closes the door before sitting down next to the dog. He runs his fingers through the fur. It's actually calming.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

They're all staring at the stairs, at the space where Chloe and Dean had been. "Is she okay?" Lois bites her lip. "Did she look okay? I mean there are no visible injuries? Did I miss any visible injuries? Do you think there were invisible injuries?" Everyone turns to Lois confused. "Internal injuries." She corrects herself.

"She looked…okay." Sam offers then tilts his head. "Did anyone else see the dog?" He looks around and they all turn back to stare at the stairs, waiting.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The silence in the room isn't terribly heavy. Chloe has a feeling it should be terribly heavy. She thinks it should be weighing down on her, suffocating her but it's nice. It's comfortable. _It's safe_, a voice whispers in her head. Dean makes her feel completely safe and the revelation surprises her.

She's never had this feeling before, this feeling of pure and utter safety in someone else's presence. Not even with Clark because, for all his powers and strength, Chloe never truly felt safe with him. She's not sure if it's the alien part of him. She'd like to think she's better than that, but she's not sure of anything anymore. Oliver has spent the last few years watching her, protecting her and he makes her feel safe, he really does, but it took them a long time to get there-a _really_ long time.

With Dean it had been immediate. The moment he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the rubble while still managing to quote cheesy movie lines, she knew that he would spend the rest of his life doing whatever it took to ensure that nothing bad ever happened to her. That was why when it came down to it, when she needed to call someone to pick her up, she called Dean. She could have called Oliver, she could have called Clark or even Castiel but she called Dean and he'd come for her and she was safe again.

"I'm sorry." He whispers, feeling her gaze on him. "I'm so sorry." He repeats again, his voice breaking a bit this time and Chloe wants to ask him what he could possibly be sorry for. He'd gotten her out of that house, away from that place. "I never should have let you out of my sight." He explains further. He looks across at her and shakes his head. "I'm sorry." He pushes himself off the edge of the bed. "You should try and get some rest." He offers before walking out the door.

She is tired, overly tired, so tired she isn't sure she actually can sleep but she knows she should. She crawls up the bed and lays her head on the pillow, the dog moving along with her, curling himself up against her stomach. She closes her eyes cautiously, fearful of what she's going to see, she is positive that the sight that's going to greet her will be that of the mother and child. She's right.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_She's back in that kitchen, sitting on that floor. Her breath is low and shallow and she can't turn away, she can't look anywhere else. There's a woman crouched in the corner, her eyes wide open, frozen in complete and utter terror. There is no visible sign of injury on her, no shirt drenched in blood, no cuts, no bruises, but Chloe knows death when she sees it. She swallows to steel herself because the dead woman isn't the worst part. _

_She's been dead for at least a day. Complete rigamortis has set in. The lifeless child in her lap is wedged between her in the wall, as if she was attempting to shield him from something. Her arms have frozen in their position, keeping him clutched against her chest. Chloe wonders if the child died before her, if the last thing those fear filled eyes saw, was the life leaving her son. She wonders how long the woman clutched him to her body after he died before finally dying herself._

_These people were killed in their own home, ambushed on what they believed was a regular day all so Lucifer could use their house to have a conversation with Chloe. There was nothing special about them, nothing special about this house. He chose it randomly, killed them randomly, without a second thought, without any thought likely. _

_There are footsteps to her right and she turns expecting Dean again, to come save her, to take her away. She's surprised when she feels a slight disappointment at the image of Jimmy. He crouches down next to her and looks over his shoulder at the body of the woman. She knows he's not there to save her, to take her away. She closes her eyes; she doesn't want to look anymore. "Don't." Jimmy's voice is harsh and almost accusatory. "Don't close your eyes, don't look away from this."_

_She opens her eyes and forces herself to look again. Closing her eyes didn't help anyway. She knows that for a very long time after this, for weeks, maybe even months, every time she closes her eyes, this is what she will see, all she will see. "You need to see this." Jimmy grabs her face and holds it in place. "He'll do it again. He'll do it again and again, family after family. He'll do it for fun and he'll like it." Jimmy turns back to her. She shakes away his hand because he's right. She doesn't try to look away, doesn't want to look away anymore because he's right, she needs to see this. She wants to memorize it, memorize everything about it. _

_::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::_

Chloe opens her eyes and she's back in her room at the cabin but she can still see them. She turns her head. The book is sitting on the side table where Dean put it down. She reaches out and grabs it, flipping it open to the first page and she sees something she missed before. A note, for her, written in sloppy loose, almost smug handwriting, the devils' handwriting. It's just four words but they send chills up and down her spine. "_I'll be in touch."_

She knows what to do; she has to take control of this situation. She doesn't understand how she ever let it get away from her in the first place. She's a leader; she's normally the one giving the orders, not taking them. Even after five years she has a hard time sharing the leadership role with Oliver. But from the moment this whole thing started she'd done nothing but step back and let things be decided for her, let everyone else dictate what would happened, what she should do and where she should go. She knows they mean well, knows they're only trying to help but she also knows that the only way she has a hope in hell of surviving is if she takes back control of her own life.

She's been doing her best to ignore the situation, to keep herself at a distance from it all. The end of the world is slightly easier to take if you look at in an abstract sense rather than as a real probability. Sam and Dean and Castiel aren't any better, they've been keeping her locked up, hidden away from the realities of this war but earlier today there it was, in front of her face and she can't turn away, refuses to turn away from it.

She now has a face to go along with the innocent casualties, the people that are dying for a fight they don't even know exists. This woman and her family had no idea they were in the middle of a war. The people on that street, going about their daily lives have no idea that they could have just as easily been chosen. They have no idea the horrors that they escaped by mere chance.

And now Chloe has seen, now she knows and it's no longer an abstract thing, it's real and there's no way around it. Just because those people don't know the danger they're in, doesn't mean that they don't deserve to have someone fight for them. Fighting so that they can continue to live obliviously happy in their normal lives. This is what Sam and Dean have been doing their whole lives, fighting for the people who don't know they need fighting for. It's been their job, and now it's Chloe's job. More than that, it's her war and she doesn't just plan on fighting, she plans on winning.

_Just as every cop is a criminal_

_And all the sinners, saints_

_As heads is tails_

_Just call me Lucifer_

_Cause I'm in need of some restraint_

_So if you meet me have some courtesy_

_Have some sympathy, and some taste_

_Use all your well learned politesse_

_Or I'll lay your soul to waste_

_-The Rolling Stones_


	6. Up Around the Bend

**Up Around the Bend**

_There's a place up ahead and I'm goin'_

_Just as fast as my feet can fly_

_Come away, come away if you're goin',_

_Leave the sinkin' ship behind._

"How is she?" Lois asks hopefully. Dean stops at the bottom of the stairs to find everyone standing there staring at him.

"She's fine." He pushes his way through the crowd and walks to the kitchen. He grabs a beer from the fridge and downs it in one go, not even bothering to close the door. "As fine as she can be, I guess." He grabs another beer. "On the other hand—I didn't get to kill anything and now there's dog hair all over my back seat."

"Yeah, about the dog," Sam asks confused.

"You try and get it away from Chloe." Dean sits down at the table and runs his fingers through his hair. "When I put her seatbelt on, the damn thing nearly took my arm off."

"What happened to her?" Castiel asks, worried.

"I don't know, she hasn't said a word since I found her. When I got there, she was alone in the house. Well there was the dog and the dead bodies of the homeowners too. She was sitting on the floor just staring, like she was broken or something."

"That's it." Oliver shakes his head. "I'm taking her back home."

"She cannot go back home," Castiel reminds him.

"I let you guys do it your way and not only did you let the Devil himself take her, you broke her. I'm taking her back where I can protect her properly."

"You cannot protect her." Castiel shakes his head. "Not against this, not against them."

"Like you've been doing such a great job?" Bart snorts.

"Hey, we weren't the ones who led the demons straight to her," Dean snaps at Oliver reminding him that it was his own sloppy planning that started this whole thing.

"Don't try to blame this on me." Oliver shakes his head. "You told me, you swore to me that you would keep her safe."

"We can only keep her as safe as you let us." Sam jumps in the fight this time. "This whole thing was out of control from the start. Too many people were involved, it was sloppy."

"Oh I'm sorry, it's not like there's a manual you can go pick up at the bookstore. We're a little new to this whole thing."

"Exactly and we're not," Dean points out. "We've been doing this for years."

"And really, you'd think you'd be better at it," Bart scoffs.

The argument goes on for a good fifteen minutes. Oliver keeps insisting that the only way to keep her safe is for him to take her back home. Castiel, Sam and Dean argue that there's no way they can even begin to understand how much Oliver can't keep Chloe safe. Chloe watches the whole thing unfold in front of her eyes as she sits on the bottom step, her knees crushed to her chest, her fingers gliding through the hairs on the back of the dog's neck.

"I think it's time to put an end to this, don't you?" Chloe asks the dog and stands up without waiting for an answer. "Hey," she calls out but they can't hear her over the sound of their own yelling. "Hey." She moves a step closer but still they don't listen. The dog scrambles to his feet and barks, loudly.

Everyone stops and turns around. "Chloe." Lois runs to her and throws her arms around Chloe's neck, pulling her close, sobbing in relief. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm fine," Chloe assures her cousin. "I'm more than fine, really." She says more to Clark who seems to be hovering over by Lois staring at her as if he's not sure she's real just yet and she pushes Lois away, grabbing his hand and giving it a quick squeeze, a reassurance that she's alive. "I'm fine. I'm not broken." She looks to Oliver. "And I'm not going home. I'm dead. Remember?"

"Chloe," Oliver protests. "We faked your death to keep you hidden from them, but they know where you are now, so it doesn't matter anymore."

"All the more reason for her to move with us to another safe house," Castiel says.

"It's not about that anymore Oliver." Chloe shakes her head. "It's not about them; it's not about keeping me safe, it's about something else now." Oliver frowns. "There's something I need to do and I can't do that I need to do in Metropolis or Star City."

"And what exactly do you need to do?" Castiel asks confused.

"There's this prophecy." Chloe sits down. "It's called the Solomon Prophecy. Written by-"

"Let me guess." Dean raises his hand as if he's back in school. "Some dude named Solomon?"

Chloe pauses. "He was a King, and no actually, it was technically written by Solomon's Royal Scribe, but the prophecy was given to Solomon by God. He put this prophecy in a box, he sealed the box in a Temple and he buried the Temple in a mountain."

"Are you talking about Solomon's Temple?" Bobby asks. "As in the First Temple, the temple that supposedly houses the Ark of the Covenant."

"Whoa hold on, like the thing from Indiana Jones?" Dean perks up. "The thing that melted the faces off the Nazis."

"Will you do research once in a while that doesn't involve using a remote control?" Sam shakes his head.

"Bite me." Dean shoots back. Chloe smiles finding the whole thing amusing.

"What was this prophecy about?" Sam asks, trying to get the conversation back on track.

"It's about the Apocalypse." Chloe takes a deep breath. "And it's about me."

"You?" Oliver asks astonished.

"Yeah, isn't that right Castiel?" Chloe turns to the angel and he nods slowly, treading very carefully. "You knew about this prophecy?'

"Yes," he answers her truthfully.

"And it says, in this prophecy that I'm going to heal God?" Chloe stares intently at Castiel. He hesitates for a second, a fraction of a second actually and that's all Chloe needs to know. He knows. He knows there are two ways to interpret it. She nods at him and he follows her lead. "Yes."

"Okay, so this doesn't change anything. We knew all this before, now there's a piece of paper out there somewhere that makes it official," Dean points out.

"It changes everything." Chloe turns to him. "I can't sit in a padded cell the rest of my life. You can't lock me away from the world in a tower and pull me out when you need me."

"That's not what we're doing." Dean shakes his head.

"I get it, what you were trying to do. I've got a job to do and I can't do that job if I'm dead. I understand." Chloe sighs. "But it's not working; Lucifer snatched me off the street before you could even blink."

"Yes, because we let you out of your tower," Dean jokes.

"Don't." Chloe shakes her head her tone serious, and his mouth closes comically. "He snatched me off the street and let me go. He did it because he could, because he wanted to show you that he could. Because he wanted to show you that he could get to me anytime, anywhere and there's nothing we can do about it."

"So?" Sam wonders exactly where she's going with this.

"So, if there's nothing we can do about it, then I say we do nothing." Chloe takes a deep breath. "We don't bother trying to hide anymore. Let them come for me, let them all come; in fact let's take the fight to them. I need to be proactive, I can't just sit here and twiddle my thumbs and wait for the sky to fall down." Chloe doesn't even realize she's pacing until Dean reaches out and grabs her by the shoulders stopping her.

"Calm down Chicken Little." He smirks and she takes a deep breath.

"This isn't what I do," she tries to explain to him. "I don't hide away and wait for the action to come to me. I go out and I find the action. Sometimes when I'm really bored I create the action." Dean smiles at her.

"OK, but what do you want to do?" Sam stands up.

"I want to find the prophecy," Chloe says. "The reason why they're all after me is because of this thing, because they all believe that I'm going to do what it says I'm going to do. I'm not sure if I believe in destiny or if I believe that we can change things but what I do know is that if this prophecy is going to set the course for the rest of my life, I want to read it. I need to see it for myself."

"You cannot," Castiel speaks up.

"Why not?" Chloe deflates slightly.

"It does not exist," Castiel tells her. "Not anymore anyway. The scribe created seven copies and spread them out to the seven corners of the world but over the years they have all disappeared, there is not a single copy left."

"That's not true." Bobby looks over at Castiel. "There's always the original."

"The one buried under the mountain, sealed in the Temple, inside the box that's un-open-able," Bart asks. "That one?'

"Yeah, that one." Bobby glares at the kid. Chloe thinks Bart might have just met his match.

"Well yeah, I'm sure it'll only take us a hundred years to find it," Bart says. "You think the apocalypse will wait?"

"There's no way this thing has been around that long and no one else has gone looking for it," Sam pipes up, the idea growing on him.

"I'll get on the boards." Bart walks over to Chloe's computer. "Put out a bulletin."

"So that's it? You think if we find this prophecy everything will magically be okay?" Dean crosses his arms at her. There's this feeling in the pit of his stomach. She's not telling them something, something big, something important.

"Oh, no that's just the beginning." Chloe looks around the cabin. "Cass was right about one thing. We can't stay here." Oliver makes a move to speak and she shakes her head. "We've discussed a contingency."

"Who's we?" Dean frowns; she hasn't discussed it with him that's for sure.

She looks to her left at Bobby, and everyone turns confused. "Bobby and I."

"Bobby and…you've discussed this with Bobby?" Dean raises an eyebrow at her. "When exactly?"

"We were being hypothetical at the time. Anticipating, well, the end of the world. But we talked about a place we could go, a place where we could all ride out the apocalypse."

"And where is this magical place?" Oliver asks her.

"It's a camp." Bobby speaks up. "In the woods in Virginia."

"Wait a minute," Dean says slowly thinking back to the trip into the future that Zachariah sent him on. "Camp Chitaqua?"

"Yeah." Bobby frowns at him. "How do you know that?"

"I've been there before," Dean pauses. "Or I will be there, in the future-or well, I know the place." Dean shakes his head. "But it's a little big isn't it?"

"We'll need big," Chloe explains.

"There are only four of us," Dean reminds her.

"There are nine of us." Chloe looks around the room. "There will be twelve when the guys show up and that's just for starters."

"Just for starters?" Sam raises his eyebrows.

"Well yeah, once we get set up and word gets out, I expect other hunters to show up, wanting to help," Chloe points out. "End of the world-You think they're gonna sit it out on the sidelines?"

"OK, other hunters I kind of understand, but they're not hunters," Dean tells her, pointing to her friends.

"Doesn't matter, they're staying," Chloe says with conviction.

This takes Oliver by surprise but he recovers very quickly. "Of course we are."

"Wait, hold on." Dean shakes his head. "They're not staying, there's nothing for them to stay for."

"If you think you're going to get a single one of them to leave now you're seriously delusional." Chloe smiles.

"Damn right." Bart nods his agreement before taking a large bite of the sandwich he has apparently made in the last six seconds. "Where Chloe goes, so goes my nation."

"Besides, I want them here. I _need_ them here," Chloe says and Dean softens, only slightly.

"When do we leave?" Oliver asks taking out his phone and dialing a number.

"Now." Chloe looks around. "As soon as we can."

"Should I call the Planet, you think?" Lois is biting her lip and turning to Clark. "You'll need to go pack me a bag. How long do you think this could last?" she asks Chloe.

Chloe smiles sweetly. "It's the end of the world, Lois."

"So pack for a few weeks?" Lois asks.

"Maybe more." Chloe nods her head with an indulgent smile and turns to Oliver. "You can take a sabbatical from Queen Industries, right?"

"I've done it before." Oliver grins pausing to cover the phone while he answers her. "Granted last time it wasn't exactly planned." Sam looks at him confused. "Got stranded on a tropical island for two years after pirates hijacked my yacht." Sam nods and offers Oliver a _'hey it could happen to anyone'_ shrug.

Chloe walks to the fridge, pulls out two beers and hands one to Dean. "Chloe, you shouldn't encourage this," Dean tells her, taking the proffered beer.

"Why not?" She shakes her head at him and takes a sip. "I didn't bring them into this. I left them so they wouldn't be brought into this. Even with all your precautions, they went after Lois. You think they'll stop at her to get to me? No, they'll go after my friends, my family. Better that they're prepared, better they're somewhere I can protect them, where they can learn to protect themselves."

"But it's not their fight," Dean argues.

"It's everyone's fight Dean," Chloe scoffs. "We've got two armies barreling down on us and the only way we can hope to survive is if we have one of our own."

"And this is our army?" Dean lets out a bark of laughter. He turns around and observes Bart running circles around Bobby just to annoy him. Lois is explaining to Clark why he shouldn't bother packing her pink shirt because it's her favorite shirt and if there's going to be an apocalypse it might get ruined and then she'll really get mad. And Oliver, head of a billion-dollar corporation is dictating a memo to his secretary on why he won't be in the office for the foreseeable future.

"It's a start." Chloe turns back to Dean and offers him a big bright brilliant smile. "You scared yet?"

"Oh, I'm getting there," he admits sipping his beer.

"Oh one more thing guys," Chloe calls out. Everyone gives her their full attention. "I hope you're not afraid of needles."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**October 13, 2010**

Dean turns off the road and sees the large wooden sign that says _Camp Chitaqua _and he remembers the picture he saw in the future of Castiel and Bobby and some other guys standing in front of that sign. The rusty front gate is already open so Dean just drives right through it. He marvels at the fact that despite his best efforts, he's back here in this place. Maybe there is something to be said for destiny. He turns his head and looks at Chloe. She wasn't there the last time. He'd been in it by himself. But this time he has her and that makes him feel like maybe things won't go down the way they did before.

They drive along a winding path that follows a very large, very still lake until they finally make their way into the main area of the camp. When they get out of the car Chloe looks around and studies the area unimpressed.

The grounds themselves are overgrown in some places and completely barren in others. There are large patches of dry cracked earth that flows seamlessly into messy wild vines which are threatening to overtake half of a building. The facilities themselves aren't much to call home about either. The wooden siding is rotting in most places and molding in the others. The paint is chipping, showing layer upon layer of years worth of various patch jobs. All of the windows are missing their screens and over half of them are cracked or completely shattered. She can't properly inspect the rooftops but assumes they're in the same condition.

The lake that Chloe spies beyond the cabins looks clean enough if not a bit murky but the dock is one swift wind away from dropping into the water. Everything looks fixable though.

"I told you," Dean offers at the look on her face. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

"You said it was old, not falling apart." Chloe wrinkles her nose. The other cars pull up behind Dean's and everyone else gets out. Chloe smiles as Lois rubs at her collarbone. "Don't touch it," Chloe calls to her.

Lois pulls back the collar of her shirt and looks again at the strange pentagram tattoo that is not two hours old and then back at Chloe. "If the General ever sees this-" She looks back down at the tattoo. "I'm blaming it on you."

"That's fine." Chloe laughs. "Only because the General is stationed in Germany for the next three years and the world will probably end before he gets new orders and transfers home."

"Well isn't that lucky for you." Lois snorts.

"Couldn't have planned it better," Chloe jokes. "Lois, that thing is going to stop any more demons from wearing your body as a meat suit," she reminds her cousin. Chloe made them all get the Sam tattoo that Dean and Sam have, everyone except Clark. Even with threat of the apocalypse, Clark was still dragging his heels about revealing his secret, and short of one of the team trying amateur tattoo hour while exposing him to greenK, they were out of luck. Sam solved that dilemma, giving her a necklace that he swears will do the same job. Chloe's not even sure if demons can possess Kryptonian's and a part of her she's not ready to acknowledge is tempted to test her theory out. On the off chance she's wrong, an exorcism doesn't sound too hard from what Dean told her, but she dismisses the thought as soon as she has it and gives Clark the necklace instead.

"Right." Lois nods and drops her hand from her shirt and she looks at their surroundings for the first time. "So, this is home sweet home for the foreseeable future." She takes in the cabins and the lake and the dilapidated dock and wrinkles her nose. "Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake," she mumbles under her breath and Chloe glares at her. "I'm just saying." Lois throws up her hands and turns, looking Sam up and down, assessing him. "A guy comes out of the woods in a hockey mask; I'm hiding behind you, Sasquatch."

"OK." Sam laughs at her thinking a psycho in a hockey mask would be the least of their problems.

"So what do you think?" Chloe asks.

"Well the kitchen's not worth much," a voice calls from the porch they've all congregated in front of. "I wouldn't boil water in there much less cook a meal." Dean watches as Ellen steps down off the porch, tossing a rag over her shoulder, Jo trailing behind her. "You really don't want to know about the bathrooms and half of the cabins further back in the woods need new roofs."

"Is there any good news?" Chloe sighs hopefully.

"The wiring is still pretty good," Jo offers. "But the generators are basically crap."

Chloe nods and turns to find Dean staring between her and Ellen, confusion on his face. "What are you doing here?" he asks the older woman.

"They were working a haunting about sixty miles from here," Chloe answers him. "They were closer than us so I asked them to go ahead and check the place out for me."

"And you guys know each other how?" Sam asks, also confused.

"Well, we haven't formally met." Chloe walks back over to Ellen and holds out her hand. "Chloe Sullivan."

Ellen smiles and laughs, shaking Chloe's hand. "Ellen Harvelle, and this is my daughter, Jo."

"Pleasure." Chloe then shakes Jo's hand, who seems to find the entire exchange amusing. Dean raises his eyebrows, still waiting for an explanation. "Bobby hooked me up with Ellen when I was working on the website 'cause she knows more hunters than anyone in the country." Dean nods in agreement. "Then last week she had a little trouble on a job and I helped her out."

"Helped me out?" Ellen scoffed. "You saved my daughter's life."

"Bart did most of the actual saving," Chloe reminds her, "I just told him where to go."

"Hello again." Bart waves at Jo from behind Chloe and she waves back with a smile.

"You did all this last week from the living room of the cabin?" Dean asks her. "I spent the last week in the living room and I couldn't even get past World 4 on Super Mario Brothers."

"That's because for some reason you suck at the water levels." Chloe laughs at him. "You see water and lose all hand-eye coordination."

"Anyway," Ellen says, looking at the two of them with amusement, "Chloe filled us in on what was going down and you know we're in." Ellen nods at them. "So what do you need me to do?"

"Right." Chloe rubs her hands together as the group assembles around her. "Ellen, I need you in charge of the Mess. I figure it's right up your alley." Ellen nods. Working in a bar for the past thirty years makes her more than qualified. "We need food, we need plates and pots and pans…we're going to need to feed people, a lot of people, which means we're going to need a working kitchen. Make a list of supplies and tell me what can be repaired and what just needs to be replaced."

"Can do," Ellen affirms, already making a list of things she needs in her head.

"Bart, Clark, sweep the grounds. I want you to get to know every inch of this place so that_ I_ can know every inch of this place. I want to know what we've got and what condition it's in. I want to know where every tree is, every clearing, ever gofer hole." Bart nods and offers her a mock salute.

"AC, Victor, scope out the perimeter, make a clear and obvious boundary to the camp. Sam, Cass, I want you to go with them. You guys need to work out the logistics of security. I want this place demon-proof, angel-proof, human-proof. Tell me what kind of monitoring system you think we need. Do you think we should fence it all in, is it worth it? That gate at the front definitely needs replacing. How many guards will we have to have on duty to cover it all?" Sam nods and walks over to AC and Victor to start planning logistics and Chloe turns her attention on the girls.

"Dinah, Lois, I need you guys to go into the cabins, tell me which buildings would best be used for what. We need places to sleep, places to train, places to strategize. Then I need to know what we need to do to make them inhabitable-beds, blankets, lamps. I'm not talking decorating here, I'm talking bare essentials, what do we _need_." Lois and Dinah working together might not be the best idea but it's all Chloe's got at the moment. "And Bobby, you're on weapons."

"I can do that." Bobby smiles at her.

"I need to know what we need. From that, I need to know what you can get. What you can't source, I probably can. Also let me know the difference between what we absolutely have to have and what you' d just really like to have. We'll probably find some happy medium in there."

"What about me?" Jo asks.

"I need someone to help me, to keep me and this place all organized, you think you can do that?" Jo nods at her. "Great, everyone get Jo your lists by the end of the week so we can start getting things ordered and stocking up," Chloe tells them all.

"I suppose that's where I come in?" Oliver asks her and she turns to him sheepishly. "I get it, that's fine; I will gladly fund your end of the world stockpile." He recalls an emergency stash of Kryptonite-infused weapons sitting in a storage unit in Poughkeepsie that he paid for. "Apparently, that's what I'm good at."

"_Our_ end of the world stockpile," Chloe corrects him. "And you know you're valuable to me for more than just your wallet."

"But it doesn't hurt," Oliver offers and Chloe shakes her head.

"No, it doesn't." She sighs. "Once we're settled in I'll have much more important things for you to do. I'll need you in charge of training and recruitment. It won't be hard to get the hunters involved but it'll definitely give us a boost if we could get more Metas. Have some superpowers on our side for a change. But for now…"

"I get it. Trust me, it's fine," Oliver assures her. "First things first, I suppose I better look into buying this place." He looks around the area unenthusiastically. "Last thing we need is to settle in for the apocalypse and get evicted by the state for squatting."

"That wouldn't exactly be ideal, no." Chloe shakes her head. She looks around and sees everyone standing there watching her. "Don't you guys all have jobs to do?"

They all break off into their designated groups leaving Dean and Chloe standing alone in the large clearing. "So what's my job then?" Dean turns to her. "Just to sit here and look pretty?"

She laughs at the huge smirk on his face. "That's an easy job for you but no." Chloe wraps her arms around her middle as the sun slowly sets and the chilly night air creeps up on them. "How long have you been doing this?" Dean raises his eyebrows.

"Looking pretty?" He smirks at her. "My whole life."

She nudges his shoulder with hers and shakes her head. "Hunting," she clarifies.

"Since I was seven," Dean tells her honestly.

"Your dad trained you right?" Chloe starts to walk and Dean follows her for lack of anything else to do.

"Uh yeah." Dean nods.

"And he was an ex-Marine?"

"Did you…did you check up on us?" Dean stops abruptly which forces her to stop as well.

"You told me you were the best. I was putting my life in your hands; you think I was just going to take your word for it?" she asks him seriously.

"Well, yeah." Dean nods.

"People don't often tell you _no_ do they?" Chloe muses and Dean smiles brightly. "I check up on everything, and everyone. Force of habit, no offense intended."

"None taken," Dean assures her. "So what did you find?"

"Well you've got a reputation that's for sure," Chloe tells him, resuming her walk and Dean resumes following her. "Whether people know you or have just heard of you they all have an opinion."

"Good for them." Dean snorts.

"Basically there are really only two opinions and it's split evenly down the middle. They either think you're the best, the only way to go, the only ones who can finish this thing," Chloe tells him.

"Or?" Dean asks intrigued.

"Or they blame you for what's going on. They think you're a menace and should be eliminated, for the greater good." Dean scoffs. "They're all in agreement on one thing though."

"What's that?"

"You can more than handle yourself in a fight." Chloe stops and turns to him.

"I'm scrappy." Dean smirks.

"You're good," Chloe corrects him.

"OK," Dean agrees with her. "I'm good. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Teach me," Chloe says and it comes out sounding more like an order than a request. It's a sensible order though. If she's going to be in this fight, she's going to have to learn how to take care of herself. Though Dean doesn't envision another situation arising where she's forced to deal with anything on her own again, not if he has anything to say about it, but it never hurts to know the basics.

"Yeah, ok." Dean nods. "I can do that."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe wipes her hands and looks around her cabin declaring it relatively livable, or at least good enough for the time being. She's exhausted. She hasn't really slept since she got back from her impromptu visit with Lucifer and she's just spent the past two hours cleaning her cabin so that she can theoretically, at some point, sleep without the fear of contracting some exotic disease or swallowing a family of spiders. That is if she can actually make herself sleep.

Practically everyone else went to bed hours ago after claiming and cleaning their own cabins and the guys got back from the closest sporting goods store with a trunk full of air mattresses and sleeping bags. She probably would have been done sooner but her cabin was almost three times the size of everyone else's.

It was likely the old owner's residence; it comes with its own private bathroom, a bedroom and a main room with a small kitchenette. She didn't ask for the cabin it was sort of given to her after a unanimous decision was made that everyone's life would be better if Chloe had her very own coffee pot in her room. Not to mention they figure she can use the extra space as a sort of office area.

She walks out onto the small porch of her cabin and takes a deep breath of the fresh night air. "I think this is going to work." Chloe says, staring out onto the still lake as she leans against the railing. "We just need to get this place up and running and then…we can work on the prophecy."

"Do you think reading it will change anything?" Castiel asks walking up, his forearm brushing hers as he braces the railing beside her.

"No." Chloe shakes her head. "But whoever said it was a bad idea to walk into something with too much information? So is this going to be a habit? You standing outside my cabin watching over me like a creepy stalker guy?" She looks up at him and he actually blushes.

"I just…I can't see you Chloe," he says it as if it should explain everything and in a way it does. Castiel leans against the railing and takes a deep breath. "He is not right." Castiel changes the subject.

"You don't want him to be right," Chloe counters.

"He is not right." Castiel shakes his head. "I know it."

"How?" She turns to face him. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want him to be right. I really don't want to go down in the history books as the girl who killed God, but how can you be so sure that he's wrong?"

"Because I have faith," Castiel says and Chloe thinks possibly she should get that printed on a t-shirt for him as it seems to be his answer to everything.

"How can you have faith in someone who technically doesn't exist at the moment?" Chloe asks him.

"Not faith in God," Castiel corrects her. "Faith in you."

Chloe stares out across the lake. There is such an earnest, hopeful look in his eyes she can't bear to look at him. She knows as much as she doesn't want to be the woman who kills God, as much as she doesn't want to be the woman who brings about the end of the world and is responsible for the deaths of billions of innocent people, what she's afraid of the most at this moment in time is letting Castiel down.

"Besides, you will not go down in the history books as the girl who killed God because if it gets to that point, there will not be anyone to write history books." Chloe turns to him slowly. "Or anyone to read them for that matter," he adds and she laughs.

"Did you just make a joke?" Chloe asks.

"I believe it was successful yes?" Castiel offers her a small smile and she nods.

Chloe hears the bark before she sees the dog run out from the trees, Dean following behind him, slightly out of breath. The dog climbs up the steps and jumps over to Chloe. "I think he's warming up to me." Dean pants, leaning over with his hands on his knees. "He only tried to bite me five times in the past couple of hours."

"That's a good boy." Chloe pats his head and pushes him down. She takes a deep breath and allows herself a moment, just a moment of self doubt. She's been so take charge, so in control and she's had to be. She needed to act like she was self assured so that the others would believe in her but now, when it's just her and Dean and Castiel, she allows herself to slip. "Do you really think anyone will come?" she asks them quietly.

"If you build it, they will come," Castiel says matter-of-factly.

Dean and Chloe turn slowly to look at him. There is nothing in his expression that indicates he realizes what he's just said is ridiculous. "What?" Castiel asks at the matching expressions he is unable to decipher.

"He doesn't know, does he?" Dean asks.

"No." Chloe shakes her head and laughter explodes from inside of her. Dean follows and soon the two of them are holding onto their sides they're laughing so hard. It feels good, it feels cathartic. But Castiel is not in on the joke and he grows tired of their laughter very quickly.

"I am going to assume this is another one of those pop culture related jokes that I do not understand and to explain it to me would take away from the humor," Castiel asks and Chloe nods her head through the tears that are forming in her eyes. "If you do not wish to enlighten me, I am going to finish the wards on the Western boarder." Castiel pushes himself off the railing and heads for the tree line.

"Hey, don't be like that," Chloe calls after him but he either can't hear her or chooses to ignore her. Dean walks up the steps and stops to pat the dog on the head. "I think he likes it here." Chloe looks down. "We should probably come up with a name for him. We can't keep calling him 'dog'." Dean laughs and nods. She checked his collar for a name but he doesn't have an ID tag and seeing as how his previous owners are dead there is no one she can ask.

Dean slides himself easily into the space that Castiel just vacated and looks over at Chloe briefly. "So you and Bobby are the ones planning things now?"

"Why Dean Winchester," Chloe turns so her hip is resting against the railing, "are you jealous?"

Dean offers her a small eye roll and turns to face her. "I'm just wondering why Bobby? Why didn't you come to me with any of this?"

"I went to Bobby because Bobby _helped_ me plan; he didn't try and plan everything for me." She looks at Dean accusingly.

"I guess we thought we could shield you from it." Dean shrugs. "That the less you were involved the better."

"How did that one work out for you?" The corner of Chloe's lips curve up into a smirk and Dean scoffs.

"You were right," Dean tells her and Chloe has a feeling saying that is a hard thing for Dean to admit. "For so long it's just been our fight, mine and Sam's specifically. It's been about us for so long it's hard to realize there are other people involved. But there are other people involved, other people it affects, so before when you said it was everyone's fight, you were right."

"Thanks." Chloe nods.

"To an extent," he adds. "As much as it involves everyone, as much as it affects everyone, it really is just our fight-mine and Sam's and now yours. It's as much your fight now as it is ours, maybe even more so and when it comes down to it, the three of us are the only ones that matter." Dean stares at her hoping she understands what he's trying to tell her.

"You were good earlier; very take charge with everyone, passing out assignments and all. If you want to take the lead, that's fine with me. I've spent the last four years being the one in charge and you see how well that's worked out. I've seen how well it can work out." Dean coughs and turns away. "I will follow wherever you lead but I need to know that the choices you make are your choices. Not Bobby's or Ellen's. Not Oliver's or Lois' or even Cass'. This is about us and we're the ones who need to be making the decisions around here."

He's right, Chloe knows he's right. She knows that Oliver and Clark and Lois can't help her anymore, that Dean is the only one who gets it. "From now on I come to you first," Chloe offers him. "But the same goes for you. No more holding out on me, no treating me with kid's gloves. I'm in this now, all the way."

"I can do that," Dean promises.

"So you'll really let me take the lead?" Chloe glances over at him. "You'll take orders from me? You think you can handle that?"

"I think I can." Dean tilts his head and offers her a cheeky grin. "I may even grow to like it."

Chloe rolls her eyes at him and nudges his shoulder with her own. "We should get some sleep. There's a lot of work to be done in the morning."

Dean nods and pushes himself off the railing. He heads down the steps and stops, turning back to her. "Malachi."

"Who's he when he's at home?" Chloe smiles at him.

"The dog," Dean explains. "You should name him Malachi."

"Malachi?" Chloe tries the word out, it flows off her tongue, and she kind of likes it. "What does it mean?"

"It's Hebrew," Dean says sheepishly. "It means God's messenger, or angel." He shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. "I just thought, the way he came to you, how he…I thought it kind of fit."

"I like it." Chloe smiles then walks into her cabin, Malachi trailing after her.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

It doesn't take long before they get things underway. The repairs are slow going at first until Chloe pulls Clark aside and tells him that they're wasting a lot of valuable time patching roofs and floors when Clark can have it done in an afternoon. The problem is that would require him to let Lois in on his secret which he isn't ready for.

Normally Chloe would respect his privacy, let him get there in his own time but these aren't normal circumstances. She reminds him that the end of the world is fast approaching and how long does he really expect his secret to stay a secret when the angels and demons attack and he's got to use his super strength. She also points out it's better Lois hear it from him than find out when someone tries to stab him and the knife shatters into a hundred pieces.

Clark grudgingly admits that she has a point, pulls Lois aside and has a talk with her. There is some screaming, a very loud slap and then fifteen minutes later Lois shows up at the Mess Hall asking for a bag of ice and holding her right hand tightly to her chest. Chloe chooses not to comment and instead just hands her the ice and goes back to pretending to mind her own business while Lois goes back to Clark for more yelling.

Later that night Chloe finds Lois sitting on the edge of the previously rotten dock. Clark repaired it earlier that day in about a minute.

"Did you know about it?" Lois asks Chloe without even turning around.

"Yeah," Chloe tells her truthfully.

"The whole time?" Lois turns around now.

"No." Chloe sits down next to her cousin and rolls up the bottom of her jeans, dipping her feet in the murky water. "I didn't find out until my senior year, and just so you're not mad at him for no good reason, I found out. He never told me, I'm not sure he ever would have."

Lois snorts. "I have more important things to be mad at him about than that, but thanks." Lois leans back on her elbows and stares up at the night sky.

"It's a big thing Lois, huge actually. It's the kind of thing that could make a girl run screaming for the hills, or you know the nearest tabloid."

"Not fair." Lois glares at her.

"I didn't mean specifically you. But come on Lois, he landed here in the middle of a meteor shower. He comes from a completely different planet and he's got these ridiculous powers. It's not something that's easy to tell people, hell it took him a few years to come to terms with it himself and I still have to kick his ass every now and then when he starts on one of his, "I don't know who I am" and "My powers are a curse not a blessing" kicks. I mean this is serious, like coming out of the closet."

"If he was coming out of the closet, we'd have fewer problems." Lois raises her eyebrows and Chloe laughs at her attempt to lighten the mood. "He's a different species than me."

"I know." Chloe slings her arm over Lois's shoulder. "But he's Clark and that's all that really matters right?"

"I know." Lois sighs. "I figured that out a few hours ago but he kept this a secret for years, the least I can do is keep him in the dog house for a few more days."

Chloe smiles and laughs and for one minute feels like a normal person again.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**October 30, 2010**

For the first few weeks Chloe's life at the camp feels like a big blur of signing for delivery after delivery, interspersed with Dean's unrelenting, grueling, butt kicking training sessions that leave her feeling as if she's been shoved through a meat grinder.

The first thing ordered is a flatbed of mattresses and bed frames, which, even with Clark and Bart's help takes a whole day to put together and install in the cabins. The bulk of the cabins are stuffed as tightly as possible with bunk beds in anticipation of all the hunters, but she's allowed everyone else to pair up so they get full-sized beds.

Then comes the complete kitchen overhaul which includes three fridges, two stove-tops and five ovens, not to mention an insane amount of pots, pans, trays and silverware and a multitude of things that Ellen swears to Chloe they absolutely need even if Chloe isn't completely sure what they could possibly be used for. Ellen seems happy at least, toiling away in there every day.

They receive daily shipments of lumber and shingles and flat after flat of two by fours that get used up in the repairs almost as quickly as they're delivered and Chloe doesn't even want to think about how much she's spending to fix the place up.

The biggest expense of all, without a doubt is the weapons. At first glance Chloe slashes more than half of Bobby's wish list. After two hours they manage to get it down to the bare essentials and when they pass the list off to Oliver, it's the first and only time Chloe sees him flinch. Well if Chloe's being completely honest, there were probably a few things on the list that weren't exactly 'essentials' but they were just too good to pass up.

"I could have bought Belgium for less than this cost me," Oliver says watching as a shady looking guy unloads a giant van full of weapons into the building they've designated as the armory.

"Yeah but then you'd own Belgium and who wants that." Chloe makes a face and he laughs but she can tell it physically hurt him to spend this money. "Some of this stuff is custom, all of it is black market, which you know inflates the price right there, and you know what they say, you can't take it with you." She means for it to come out as a joke but Oliver doesn't see it that way.

"You keep operating on the assumption that the world will end," Oliver reminds her. "What if it doesn't?"

"Then…" Chloe shrugs helplessly. "I'll pay you back?" she offers.

Oliver just shakes his head. "He's being discreet about this isn't he?"

"Of course he's being discreet." Chloe looks over at Bobby directing the guy on where to put stuff. "Holy crap is that an RPG?" Chloe turns back to Oliver and sure enough the shifty guy is unloading a rocket propelled grenade launcher. "I'll take care of this. Bobby!" she screams and storms over to him.

Oliver hears them argue and then sees Chloe point to the RPG. "What? He gave it to me free with the C4."

"C4!" Chloe screams at the top of her lungs and Oliver cringes. Lois smacks Oliver in the back of his head. "You made it once, you can make it again," she reminds him.

"I didn't make it." Oliver shakes his head. "My parents did remember." He walks over to them and catches the tail end of the conversation.

"Look, you're being discreet about this aren't you?" Chloe eyes the shady guy and vows to run his prints when he leaves, just to be on the safe side.

"Of course I'm being discreet." Bobby brushes her off.

"Good, because seriously, the last thing I need right now is for the ATF to think we're amassing an arsenal for some…back woods, grass roots movement to overthrow 'the evil empire'."

"Isn't that what we're doing?" Bobby asks her, a barely suppressed smirk on his face.

"Just…discreet," Chloe reiterates.

"It's my middle name." Bobby uses his finger to cross his heart as he heads into the armory.

"It's his middle name," Chloe assures Oliver who nods and turns to walk away vowing that he won't turn around even when he hears Chloe scream, "No, we don't need roof mounted Brownings for the Jeeps! Who do you imagine we're fighting in this scenario? The Russians?"

"Just one," Bobby tries to bargain. "For the gatehouse out front."

"No!" Chloe screams at him.

Two hours later she checks in with Oliver to let him know that they got rid of the Brownings but the RPG really was good deal. She did at least agree that she would check all the shipping invoices from now on before signing anything. Which is how she found herself three days later in the back of an eighteen wheeler checking items off a delivery slip. She pauses, her finger hovering over a quantity number. "That's not right," she tells the delivery guy.

"Uh…" He checks his invoice then passes her the order slip. "That's what you ordered."

Chloe looks down the slip searching for the authorizing signature. "Dean." Chloe frowns looking up. "Did you order ten _pallets_ of toilet paper?"

"Yeah." Dean nods loading up another dolly for Sam to take to the Mess.

"Do you know how much toilet paper that is?" Chloe asks him.

"Yeah." He nods at her.

"That's over 20,000 rolls of toilet paper," Chloe points out.

"Yeah." He nods again this time with a smile.

"Why would you order that much toilet paper?" Chloe stares at him in amusement.

"Trust me." Dean winks at her. "You'll thank me later."

"Okay, put it in the store room," Chloe tells a guy whose name she vaguely remembers maybe being Chris and he nods at her and begins unloading the cases of toilet paper.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**November 5, 2010**

"Newbies." Lois nods her head over Chloe's shoulder, as three guys walk down the path into the open clearing that they consider the front of the camp.

Word spreads fast. The first hunters show up about two weeks after they get the camp set up and now over half of the cabins are full with more people showing up every day and normally Chloe doesn't mind but it's far too early for this today. Chloe looks down at her cereal bowl longingly and then across the camp ground where Dean is helping AC and Victor dig a trench at the edge of the property line. "I just sat down for breakfast." Chloe pouts and Lois rolls her eyes standing up and walking to the door. "Ah man." Chloe grabs her bowl and spoon and follows Lois outside.

Chloe and Lois watch the three of them as they get closer and reassesses her earlier opinion of them. Two of them are guys; one of them is just a kid. "What's with the kid?" Lois asks just as Chloe poses the same question in her head.

"No idea." Chloe shrugs spooning a bite of cereal into her mouth. She studies them. The taller one is wearing cowboy boots and a ratty old Metallica t-shirt to go along with his smug expression and probably less than deserved saunter. The other guy is sporting a blue baseball cap with an old army duffel slung over his back. His attention is equally divided between the path in front of him and the kid next to him and Chloe assumes that they're together. Chloe turns her attention on the kid, he looks ten maybe eleven. He's got his own pack slung across his back, he looks dirty and hungry and Chloe wants to feed him.

"Can I help you?" Chloe asks as they get closer.

"I doubt it sweetheart." Metallica shirt smiles and actually winks at her.

"You sure about that?" Chloe takes another bite, wiping a bit of milk off with her sleeve.

"We need to talk to someone in charge." Metallica shirt looks down at bowl then back up at Chloe. "You wanna run along and find us Dean Winchester?"

"Dean?" Chloe looks over at Lois then back at Metallica shirt. "You want Dean?"

"Yeah. I'm assuming he's the one in charge here." Metallica shirt winks again and Chloe offers him a very un-amused smile.

"Dean!" Chloe calls over the grounds to him and he stops what he's doing and walks over, a look of confusion on his face.

"What?" he asks, looking between Chloe and the new guys.

"These boys here want to talk to someone in charge." Chloe smiles sweetly at him.

"So why did you call me over?" he asks panting.

"You're in charge here, aren't you?" Metallica shirt asks, not so assured anymore. "We heard about the Winchesters, Sam and Dean, gathering an army. We came to volunteer."

"The army thing's right." Dean wipes his face with his shirt. "But I'm not the one in charge here. You wanna join; you gotta talk to the boss."

"Well if you're not the boss then…" Metallica shirt slowly turns his head to look at Chloe.

"Now, can I help you?" Chloe takes another bite, passes the bowl to Lois and smiles. None of them say anything. "How'd you hear about us?" Chloe asks him.

"Ellen." Blue hat speaks up for the first time.

Chloe looks behind her; Ellen's come out to check on the scene herself.

"He's good." Ellen nods. "Him, I don't know." She turns her attention to Metallica shirt.

"I'm Jason." Blue hat holds out his hand and Chloe shakes it. "This is Clint; we met up on a job a few months ago. He's…cool." Blue hat, Jason, doesn't seem so sure about his own statement which makes Chloe believe it even less.

Chloe stares at the group for a minute and then turns around to Bart who nods and walks away without even questioning her. A crowd has gathered now, Sam and Oliver have wandered over from wherever they were, along with what Chloe slowly realizes is the majority of the camp. Bart's back and he tosses Chloe a bottle. She in turn tosses it to Clint.

"Drink it," she says simply.

"We're hunters." Clint shakes his head, knowing right off the bat what it is. "You think we'd be stupid enough to get ourselves possessed."

"Drink it." Chloe insists shrugging.

"No. This is insulting." Clint angrily tosses the bottle back to Chloe and before she can even snatch it out of the air, Sam and Dean have already drawn their guns, cocked and aimed at them. As far as they're concerned the only reason to refuse a drink of holy water is if you're possessed, no exceptions. Clint starts to draw his own weapon but Sam is quicker, elbowing him in the stomach then shoving him to the ground.

Jason is slower and more hesitant drawing his gun and Chloe knocks it out of his hand, twists his arm behind his back and drives him to his knees. She doesn't notice the kid pulling his weapon until she hears it cock behind her.

"Let him go." The kid's hand is shaking and his voice cracks slightly.

"Back off, Lucas," Jason calls.

"Yeah," Dean says, surprising the kid, causing him to turn quickly toward the sound of his voice. Dean's hand shoots out and before Chloe knows what she's seeing, the kid is unarmed and Dean is sliding the weapon into his waistband. "Back off, Lucas."

Chloe releases Jason and takes a step away. He pulls himself to his feet and she tosses him the bottle again, smiling. "Drink it." He takes a sip of the bottle, passing it to Lucas, assuring him with a wordless nod that it's okay. Sam pulls Clint to his feet and Chloe grabs the bottle from Lucas and passes it to Clint, who seems even more annoyed now that he has to drink it.

Satisfied that none of them are possessed, Chloe relaxes and so do Sam and Dean. "You two can stay but the kids got to go," Chloe tells him.

"Why?" Jason asks horrified.

"I'm not letting a kid in this." Chloe's face is hard.

"I'm not a kid," Lucas says defiantly and Chloe turns to him.

"How old are you?" She narrows her eyes.

"Sixteen." He doesn't blink or try to look away.

Dean snorts from behind her and Chloe hides a smile. "You're thirteen, if anything."

"He's my brother," Jason says. "Our parents are dead. Killed by a…he's got nowhere else to go."

Chloe looks over at the kid who looks terrified at the prospect of being separated from his brother. "No aunts or uncles?" she asks and Jason shakes his head. "Friends of the family?"

"Not anymore." Jason pulls his pack higher up on his back and pleads with Chloe with his eyes. "I'm all he's got left."

"Fine," Chloe says. "There are rules if you want to stay here. Rules that you will be expected to follow." She walks around them. "Rules that will come from me. Can you handle that?"

"Yes ma'am." Jason and Lucas answer her, Clint merely snorts.

"Oh, ma'am. I like that." Chloe smiles. "You will pull your weight, everyone has a job and everyone does their job or they are gone." They nod again. "Jo will assign you a cabin and your chores. I suggest you are very nice to Jo; you don't want to piss her off. A kind word here or there could mean the difference between chopping firewood and the 3 a.m. shift patrolling the Western boarder every night."

"Yes ma'am." They nod again.

"Oh and this goes for everyone. What Jo says goes. I'm tired of people coming to me, complaining about their chores and assignments. I honestly don't care. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am," everyone calls out in unison and Chloe smiles.

"A girl could get used to this." She turns to walk away then stops and turns back, snapping her fingers as if she's just remembered something. "So we don't have to repeat this whole holy water test all the time-" She turns to Sam who pulls down the collar of his shirt. "Tomorrow morning you'll go into town, you'll see Tony at the barber shop and you'll get this tattoo." The kid's eyes light up at this. "Not you." Chloe actually smiles at him. Sam tosses her something and she holds it out to the kid. "You wear this at all times; it never comes off, not when you sleep, not when you shower, never." He nods and Chloe slips the necklace over his head.

She stares at him for a second, debating something internally before she turns to Dean and holds out her hand. Wordlessly, Dean passes over the gun he took from the boy and Chloe only hesitates a second before giving it back to him. "The next time you pull a weapon, you better be ready to pull the trigger."

"Yes ma'am." He takes the gun from Chloe and quickly clears the chamber and double checks the safety before sliding it back in the waistband of his pants.

"You're pretty good with that," Chloe says, straightening to stand.

"Yes ma'am." He nods again and Jason moves closer.

"He's really good with weapons; he's like a savant or something," Jason tells Chloe. "Give him any weapon and in an hour he'll have taken it apart, put it back together again and be able to tell you how it works."

"Bobby's in charge of our armory and I know he could use some help," Chloe tells him. "It's a lot of work, probably the most important job in the camp. You'll need to keep a meticulous inventory of weapons and ammo, make sure that everything is in perfect working condition, ready for use at all times. It'll mean cleaning guns, sharpening knives…"

"I can do that." The kid's eyes light up.

Chloe nods at Jo, who writes something on her clipboard and motions for the three of them to follow her. "Was that good?" Chloe asks when the new recruits are out of earshot and Lois hands over her cereal again. "Sufficiently terrorizing for a first impression?" Sam nods, surprising himself with a laugh as she gathers another spoonful of cereal. "You're totally teaching me that thing you did with the gun, that was awesome," Chloe tells Dean.

"Sure." Dean grabs her spoon and takes a few bites. Chloe just watches him amused. "That's good."

"Fruit Loops and Cocoa Puffs," Chloe tells him taking her spoon back.

"60/40?" Dean peers into the bowl.

"20/80," Chloe says sheepishly. "I was in a chocolaty mood this morning."

"It's good." He steals another bite and walks away before she can swat at him. "Four o'clock, you and me. I'll teach you that thing with the gun."

"You're on," Chloe calls after him.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**December 6, 2010**

In just a month the volume of incoming hunters forces Chloe to pay Tony, the tattoo artist, extra to come to them. She passes the makeshift booth they set up for him and he catches her attention.

"This isn't a cult is it?" he asks and Chloe smiles. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," he explains hurriedly, trying to show his acceptance of all religions.

"It's not a cult." Chloe shakes her head. "We're just a really tight knit group." Chloe claps her hand on the shoulder of the man who is currently getting his possession-proof tattoo. "It's that right, Roy?"

"Ray," the guy corrects her.

"Whatever." Chloe shrugs and turns to Tony. "Two hundred more, if you don't ask another question." Chloe looks over Tony's shoulder to see Bart speeding around the grounds like crazy. "Or mention anything you see here, ever, to anyone." Chloe pulls the bills out of her pocket and flashes them in his face.

"Yes ma'am." Tony grabs the money and mimes zipping his mouth, locking it and throwing away the key.

Lois just shakes her head and they continue on to their intended destination. "How did I get stuck with this job again?" Chloe asks when she opens the door.

"It's a randomized chore rotation chart," Lois reminds her. "You said you wanted to be treated like everyone else. You even approved it."

"That was before this." Chloe surveys the carnage before her. "I shouldn't have to do this. I'm special."

"I know." Lois smiles at her.

"There's a prophecy about me." Chloe turns around.

"Yes, there is." Lois nods indulgently.

"I'm supposed to heal God," Chloe continues.

"Not right now. Right now you are supposed to clean the bathhouse." Lois gives her a shove.

"But…" Chloe tries to protest again and Lois raises a hand.

"You said you were bored. All you've been doing the past month and a half is signing for deliveries and training with Dean. You said you wanted to do something different."

"I mean more along the lines of like…overseeing something or you know, initiating another group of newbies. I don't even think half of them know who I am, I haven't gotten to intimidate anyone in weeks." Chloe pouts.

"Chloe, everyone here knows who you are," Lois assures her.

"Hey." Oliver walks in and backs out immediately the smell actually triggering his gag reflex. "What the hell makes that kind of smell?"

"Boys," Chloe and Lois say in unison.

"We are disgusting, disgusting creatures." Oliver's eyes start to water. "I just needed to-jeez can we talk outside?" Oliver lifts his shirt to cover his nose and Chloe follows him out. She passes her cleaning equipment off to Lois with a smile on her face.

"What do you need?" Chloe peels off her rubber gloves and drops them to the ground. "You know what? I don't care; I will do anything not to go back into that room, ever again."

"I know you said you were tired of overseeing the deliveries-"

"Of course not." Chloe talks over him, trying to quickly cut him off. "That's part of my job, it's a very important part of my job and it must be done, just lead the way."

Oliver laughs at her but takes her outstretched arm regardless. "Right."

Chloe turns to Lois whose shaking her head in the doorway to the bath house. "You should probably get one of the new guys to finish this; I've got important…things to do." Chloe follows Oliver who is trying hard to hold in his laughter.

They hear Lois scream at a random passerby. She hands off the bucket and mop and shoves the guy into the bath house before walking away. Oliver brings Chloe to the front of the camp where a very large eighteen wheeler is parked.

"What now? More toilet paper?" Chloe asks.

"I think we're pretty well stocked on toilet paper." Oliver shakes his head. "No, this is much better than toilet paper."

Chloe's eyes widen exponentially and she turns to Oliver excitedly. "Is it a pony? Oh please God, you finally got me a pony?"

"No." Oliver laughs as the driver opens the back of the truck and Chloe's breath leaves her chest in one big whoosh. "So what do you think?"

"So much better than a pony." She squeals in delight and jumps up, hugging Oliver tight before climbing onto the truck to oversee the unloading process.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean takes the steps up to Chloe's cabin two at a time. He leans down and scratches Malachi's head a few times before walking in without bothering to knock. "Have I got a present for you-" He stops dead in his tracks, the entire front room is trashed. There are empty boxes strewn all over the place, the floor is covered with packing peanuts and shrink wrap and miles of miles of wires. Wires that Dean assumes are at some point going to be used to put together the massive computer system that's currently being set up around the room in different areas. He spies about ten 30-inch monitors, two huge processing towers, things that he couldn't even begin to guess at their purpose but knows without a doubt that they cost more than he could ever make in a lifetime.

He doesn't see Chloe anywhere but he hears movement. He reaches out for a small shiny silver box that's sitting on the side table when a voice stops him. "Don't touch that," Chloe calls out from behind a large wall of equipment.

Dean jerks his hand away and turns to Chloe. "How did you know what I was going to touch?"

Chloe peeks from around the large mountain of wires and smiles. "Don't touch anything."

"Where did all this come from?" Dean steps further into the room.

"End of the World or not," Oliver says from the doorway holding two cups of coffee. "Sidekick's gotta have her Watchtower."

"Thanks." Chloe attempts to pull herself to her feet and Dean holds out a hand to help her. Oliver passes her the cup of coffee and she takes a long appreciative inhale, before taking a satisfied sip.

"I'm fine by the way," Victor calls out from behind the same mountain of wires Chloe had been hiding behind. "I didn't want any coffee or anything."

"Sorry." Oliver shrugs, obviously not sorry.

Chloe turns her attention to Dean, a smile the size of Texas on her face, her cheeks flushed with excitement and she's the happiest he's seen her in a while. "Since we're not fencing the place in, we're going to install a state of the art, motion sensing equipment around the whole perimeter." Chloe shows Dean a box of wires that looks like basically a box of wires.

"Is that why we've been digging that trench for a month?" Dean glares at Oliver who just smirks at him.

"Oh I guess that does make more sense now." Chloe nods. "Also once we get the camera's set up I'll have a complete visual of the area around the camp, plus there's so much more space for Oracle to move around in and the processing speed is ridiculous…and I forgot. You don't care about computer stuff," she says sheepishly. "So, you brought me a present?" Chloe asks looking down at  
his hands.

He tries to hide the object behind his back but it's futile. She's already seen it so he passes it over. It seems insignificant now.

"It's a knife." Her voice is confused but not disappointed.

Dean looks down at the offending knife then back up at the million dollars worth of computer equipment and it seems _really_ insignificant now.

"It's _your_ knife." She looks up at him even more confused. "You're giving me your knife?"

"Yes, no," he says quickly. Oliver raises his eyebrows amused. "I'm loaning you the knife." Dean shakes his head. "The knife is not the present."

"Oh." Chloe smiles again and slides the knife into her waistband carefully. "What's the present?

"There's…" Dean looks around once more at the computer equipment. "It's really nothing." He sighs, losing his nerve and turns to walk away.

"No." Chloe lays a hand on his arm earnestly. "What is it?"

"There's a job," Dean says swallowing. "About three hours from here. Possible poltergeist at a library."

Chloe's eyes light up. "A ghost at a library?" Her smile gets even bigger. "Like in Ghostbusters?"

Dean freezes then nods his head, laughing. "Yeah, like in Ghostbusters." He's more surprised that he's still surprised by Chloe than anything else. "I thought maybe you'd like to go with me."

"You want to take me out on a job with you?" Chloe sets her coffee down on the counter. "An actual hunt?"

"Yeah, I'm getting a bit of cabin fever up here and you've been asking about going on a job for weeks now." Dean shrugs. "I thought you might like it."

"Of course." Chloe nods. "I just…when were you planning on leaving?"

"Now." Dean checks his watch. "A few minutes."

"Oh." Her smile falters a little and she looks from Dean to Oliver then around the room. She bites her lip and looks back at Dean before turning in the direction of the mountain of cables currently swamping her friend. "Victor, can you set all of this up on your own?"

"Yeah sure with two days of no sleep and a cup of coffee of my very own." Victor snorts then peers around the wires and pauses. Chloe passes him the coffee that Oliver just gave her. "Wait, you're serious?" Chloe just offers him her best, _'you can't say not to me'_ pout and he pulls himself to his feet. "You can't be serious," he says incredulously but she just kisses his cheek and turns away.

"I'll be back in a day or two," Chloe calls from the bedroom where she's throwing things in a bag.

"Maybe three." Dean shrugs and Victor rolls his eyes. Chloe hurries out of the room with her hair hastily pulled back and a bag slung over her shoulder. Dean takes the bag from her and she turns to Oliver.

"Thank you again, so much." She reaches up on her tip toes and kisses his cheek. "Hold the fort down while I'm gone?" Malachi stands up and makes a move to follow her but she holds up a hand, stopping him in his tracks. "Oh and keep an eye on Malachi will you?"

"Uh, sure," Oliver says confused as to what exactly just happened here. He watches her walk with Dean to the Impala, her smile undisturbed even as she bombards him with questions, gesticulating wildly. For his part, Dean answers everything with a fond sort of smile on his face and Oliver feels as if something has just changed. This is the second time he has stood aside while Chloe chooses Dean over him and he does not like the feeling it stirs in the pit of his stomach or the precedent it sets.

_Catch a ride to the end of the highway_

_And we'll meet by the big red tree,_

_There's a place up ahead and I'm goin'_

_Come along, come along with me._

_-Creedence Clearwater Revival_


	7. Gimmie Shelter

**Gimmie Shelter**

_A storm is threatening_

_My very life today_

_If I don't get some shelter_

_Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away_

**April 24, 2011**

Well over a year ago now, the day after Chloe handed Oliver that earpiece and officially signed on as Watchtower, he decided Chloe needed to be able to handle herself in a fight, even though he never envisioned her being out in the field. So two days a week they had self defense classes that Oliver personally conducted, not necessarily teaching Chloe how to fight, just how to handle herself.

Then Castiel came along and told Oliver that at some point in the not too distant future a horde of angels and demons would likely descend on Metropolis, hungry for Chloe's blood. Add onto that, the routine of everyday disasters that came along with heading the Watchtower and Oliver's team and he increased the training sessions from twice a week to five times a week. He also added weapons training into their routine-crossbows, longbows, bo staffs, and anything else he could think of. What he couldn't teach her himself, he brought someone else in for. He wanted to make sure that she had every skill available at her fingertips, if she ever had a need to call upon them.

So Chloe was no stranger to physical training, she wasn't even a stranger to intensely grueling _"I'm so tired and my muscles feel like jelly and I think I'm just going to lay down right here and nap for a while"_ training. But not even five minutes into her first session with Dean she knew that this was not going to be like sparring with Oliver.

Oliver fought to win.

Dean fought to survive.

Every inch he won meant another second he got to keep breathing-that his heart got to keep beating. It was primal and fearsome and even beautiful in a way. It was the reason Chloe had asked him to teach her.

She thought she was pretty good. She could at least hold her own when the situation arose but six minutes into her first session with Dean she was flat on her back, her breath coming in quick desperate gasps, trying to figure out when exactly she lost the fight. Dean's face swam into view as her vision cleared and the look of determination, of pure survival instinct etched across his features let her know that the fight was over long before it started. Her hip was throbbed from where it slammed into the hard floor (the mats had yet to arrive), her head pounded, her stomach churned and she couldn't seem to catch her breath but still she reached out her hand and set her face with determination.

"Again," she'd said and Dean smiled, pulling her to her feet and they started over.

Now, five months after that first fight, she once again finds herself on her back on the floor of the gym. This isn't the second time and it likely won't be the last. The ground is slightly softer with the presence of the workout mats to cushion her fall and this round she managed to last a good forty-five minutes before Dean bested her as opposed to six. But still she's on the floor.

"Nice try," Dean says panting above her, her shoulders pinned to the mat, his knees locking her hips into place.

"How does me on the floor yet again equal nice try?" Chloe asks him a smile on her face even as sweat soaks into her hair.

"Well, it doesn't, I was just trying to sound encouraging," Dean tells her. "Your fake was obvious, I saw it coming a mile away and you left your right side wide open once again."

"Maybe that was my plan," Chloe tells him. "Did you ever think of that?"

"What kind of plan involves me pinning you to the ground?" Dean asks her and she raises her eyebrows. Chloe slides her right leg out of Dean's embrace, bringing it up to wrap around his hip, pulling him closer to her. "Really?" His voice hitches a bit, her expression throwing him off just enough. Dean swallows audibly and Chloe laughs, pushing herself and Dean up, flipping them both over and pinning him to the mat this time.

"That kind of plan." Chloe laughs as Dean slams his head against the mat in surrender. "So has the student now become the master?"

"Calm down young grasshopper. You've got a ways to go just yet." He opens his mouth to say something else when they hear yelling from outside.

"What's going on?" Chloe turns her head to the windows and Dean makes a move to flip them over, trying to regain the upper hand but Chloe is too quick for him. She leans to the side on her elbow as Dean pushes up and slips her knee under his back, flipping him over onto his stomach. She stabs her knee between his shoulder blades and twists his arm up, pinning him firmly. "What were you saying about having a ways to go?" she whispers in his ear and his comeback is cut off with another round of yelling from outside.

"I swear, I can't leave them alone for ten minutes." Chloe jumps to her feet and looks down at Dean who is rolling onto his back. She holds out her hand and pulls him to his feet. "Stay," she tells the dog, assuming they'll be right back.

They walk out the door to find a crowd has gathered in the area Oliver has designated as the archery range. Chloe pushes ahead of Dean and slips easily through the throng of people to where Victor and Clark seem to be involved in some sort of standoff.

"No way no how." Victor is seething; Chloe's never seen him so upset. "Not gonna happen."

"What's going on?" Chloe asks them confused.

"Ask Boy Scout." Victor grunts and backs up a few steps.

"Clark?" Chloe looks at him properly for the first time and sees that he's not alone.

"You said you needed an army," he tells her sheepishly and looks behind him to the group of Kandorians who are standing patiently at attention. "I brought you an army," he explains.

Chloe tears her attention away from the aliens and gives it back to Clark, unsure. She knows she's the one who helped him set them up with IDs and jobs and a place to live, but she's also the one who stole money from Oliver to build quite a large stock pile of kryptonite weapons should they ever go crazy and try to take over the world. She looks from the group of rigorously trained soldiers who were literally made to fight a war and then behind her at the rag tag group of hunters and civilians that she's managed to gather over the past few months.

"They want to help," Clark says and Chloe walks past him to stand in front of Zod. He looks down at her, his face giving nothing away.

"Why?" Chloe asks Zod, not Clark, because she wants to hear what he has to say.

"We like this planet," Zod says simply. "You helped us to assimilate, to make it our own and we will fight to keep it that way."

Chloe turns around and looks at Dean tilting her head to the side. He looks from her to the group assembled behind her then back again and nods. Oliver steps forward; making a move to protest but Chloe raises a hand quieting him.

His nostrils flare and he glares at her for a second before moving to stand back where he was, acquiescing to her command. Chloe turns her attention back to Zod. "You do this; you do it by my rules. You follow my orders, you and your men. You answer to me."

Zod stares at her for a while as if weighing her before falling to his knees. His head bows in supplication. Almost in unison, the entire Kandorian army follows his lead. "Stand up," Chloe says and they all stand, obeying her order without question. "Jo, find them some place to stay, give them the ten cent tour, explain how things work around here, then pass out assignments." Jo smiles and leads the Kandorians away. "We might need to empty out a few more cabins." Chloe turns her attention to AC and Victor. Despite their very vocal protest minutes ago, they simply nod and head after Jo. "I'm sure the rest of you have some work to do elsewhere," she calls to the crowd in general and it slowly disperses.

Chloe turns her attention back to Zod who has stayed behind. He's flanked by Clark on one side and Alia on the other. In unison Oliver, Bart, Sam, Castiel, and Dean close up their ranks by Chloe's side and Lois stands hesitantly between them, off to one side, unsure where to go. Chloe ignores all of this and instead stares intently at Alia then holds out her hands. "Your sword."

Alia hesitates briefly, casting a glance at Zod who nods for her to comply. She pulls the sword from its sheath and lays it across Chloe's outstretched hands. Alia doesn't flinch but the look of fear in her eyes is unmistakable as Chloe's fingers tighten around the blade and her eyes close.

Dean frowns and steps closer to Oliver. "Those two look like they have a history."

"A future, if you want to get technical," Oliver says, not taking his eyes off Zod or Alia. "In an Alternate Future Timeline, Alia runs Chloe through with that very sword, killing her."

"Right." Dean nods. "Alternate futures, those things can be a bitch." Oliver spares a glance at Dean after that comment and finds that he's actually not joking. He vaguely remembers Chloe telling him something about Dean coming to this camp at some point in the future.

Chloe's hands move from the blade of the weapon to the hilt, gripping the sword with trained ease as her eyes open, boring into Alia. They both know that in a different time they would be on opposite sides of a different war. But things have changed, it's a new world now and this time they must work together.

"How good are you with this?" Chloe asks, feeling the weight. It's solid and heavy in her hands.

"On Krypton, I was the first in my class," Alia answers hesitantly.

Chloe nods, thinking.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_"So this is a special knife that can kill demons?" Chloe spins said knife around on the table before picking it up. She looks up at Castiel, Bobby, and Lucas. _

_"Yes." Castiel nods at her. _

_"You say you've figured out how it works?" Dean asks them. _

_"Lucas did." Bobby looks at the boy, the pride in his eyes is unmistakable. _

_"Can you make other weapons like it?" she asks them, flipping the knife in the air and catching it by the blade. She holds it out to Lucas hilt first. _

_"What did you have in mind?" He takes the knife from her and slides it in its sheath.  
_  
_"Arrows," Chloe says thinking of Oliver. "Bullets, anything we can get our hands on." _

_Lucas looks at Castiel then turns back to Chloe. "I can do that," he assures her and Chloe smiles. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe stares at the blade, she likes the way it feels in her hands, the way she feels holding it. There's something right about it that she just can't put her finger on. She looks up at Alia and smiles, resting the blade on her palms again; she offers it back to the Kandorian. "Teach me."

Alia smiles and puts the sword back in its sheath. "I can do that."

"You can't be serious," Oliver calls out, unable to contain his disapproval any longer.

"Oliver." Chloe turns around, surprised, annoyed, but mainly embarrassed. The crowd that had begun to disperse pauses, lingering a bit in the outskirts of the archery range. She shakes her head, a clear indication that the discussion is over and turns to walk away.

Oliver reaches out and grabs her arm, spinning her around to face him, halting her exit and Dean takes a threatening step closer. Chloe holds up a hand and Dean stops in his place. Oliver doesn't have the energy to process that just yet so he lays it on the back burner.

"Chloe, you can't do this." Oliver moves closer, oblivious to the scene he's causing, or probably more accurately, not caring.

"I'm not having this discussion with you. I've made my decision and that's final," she practically hisses this at him, her voice low and controlled but just barely.

"No, it's not final," Oliver scoffs at her. "A year ago we sat down and made a contingency plan on how to take down Zod and his entire Kandorian army because you said they couldn't be trusted and now you're just handing them the keys to the kingdom? Have you lost your mind?"

Chloe is frozen to the spot. She's so angry she can't even think straight. She looks around at the crowd still gathered and swallows hard. "Don't you all have things you should be doing?"

They don't have to be told twice. They scurry away as fast as they can. They remind Chloe of roaches who scatter when the lights turn on. "You follow me," she spits at Oliver then storms off in the direction of the gym. Oliver and Dean hot on her feet.

When they're in the room and there are no more prying eyes or ears Chloe turns on Oliver, more angry than she can ever remember being in recent history. "You never do that again, do you understand me?" she yells at him. "Never undermine me in front of everyone like that. The decision was made; there was no reason or room for discussion. You were way out of line."

"Out of line?" Oliver steps back and stares at her. "So you make all the decisions now? Just you?"

"Yes Oliver, just me." Chloe sighs in resignation. She knew at some point it was going to come to this. It's been building for a few weeks now.

"And who put you in charge?" Oliver scoffs at her.

"God," Chloe snaps and this seems to surprise them both.

"God?" He stares at her, searching her face to see if she's joking.

This may be the first time that she's actually said it out loud, and it took her a lot of time and lot of denial to get to this point but she truly does believe it. "And everyone else in case you failed to notice," Chloe adds on trying to get away from the awkward moment before.

Oliver thinks about his team, about how they follow Chloe, about how they don't even come to him anymore, how they haven't come to him for a while. Chloe seems to read his mind and softens a bit. "We can't be a team here, we can't have discussions and make pro con lists and call for a vote. This is not a democracy; this isn't even a dictatorship Oliver. This is a war and in a war there's only room for one General."

"And that General is you?" he asks her, wondering how all of this seemed to happen right under his nose while he wasn't watching.

"Yes, that General is me." Chloe nods. "I didn't ask for this. I never wanted this but the fact of the matter is this is _my_ war, and these are _my_ people and I'm doing everything I can right now just to tread water. It would be so much easier if I didn't have to worry about you." Chloe turns her back on him then walks over the mat, dismissing him in a way that leaves no room for interpretation.

"You're okay with this?" Oliver asks Dean.

"She leads I follow?" Dean raises an eyebrow and walks over to join Chloe. "Hell yeah I'm okay with that."

Except Oliver knows that's not really how it goes. Back there, with the Kandorians, it wasn't Chloe making the decisions, it was Chloe and Dean making the decisions and maybe that's his real problem here. A year ago he would have been the one that she turned to, it would have been his advice, his opinion that she sought out before making her decision. But now it's Dean she turns to and Oliver she shushes with the flip of a wrist. "Well I'm not," Oliver says defiantly and Chloe turns around slowly to stare at him.

"You're not what Oliver?" she asks cautiously.

"I'm not okay with it," he tells her. "I'm not okay with you just taking over. This isn't a game Chloe. The decisions made here, now, affect everyone, not just you, not just the people here at this camp but potentially everyone on the planet and I'm not okay with you acting like you're the only one who gets a say in this."

"Is that really what you think?" Chloe's voice is low and hurt now, anger seeping its way into every breath. "You think I don't know how important this is? You think I think this is a game? You think I don't know that every time I open my mouth, every time I say yes instead of no or right instead of left that I don't know that choice could mean the life or death of a member of my team, a member of this camp? How can you possibly…" Dean lays a hand on her arm and it seems to calm her instantly, stopping her rant mid flow and that pisses Oliver off even more.

"I don't know what to think Chloe because you don't talk to me," Oliver practically spits at her.

"This isn't high school, we're not BFFs," she snaps. "I don't have to share everything with you."

"You don't share anything with me," Oliver screams back. "Not anymore," he adds more softly.

"This is the way things are now Oliver. This is the way they're going to be, so if you have a problem with that you can just-" she cuts herself off before she finishes her sentence and Oliver feels his whole body tense.

"What?" he asks her dreading the answer. "I can just what?"

"Leave," Chloe tells him defiantly, almost daring him. No one's a prisoner here, if they don't want to fight anymore or don't want to follow Chloe anymore, they're all free to leave at any time but if you do, don't bother coming back. Chloe always wanted to make sure that everyone understood how serious she was about this whole thing, that there wasn't going to be a lot of coming and going, that this wasn't just something that you did on the weekend or whenever it was convenient for you.

Oliver stares at her, studying her for a second. "OK."

Chloe swallows suddenly remembering something Dean told her one night while trying to teach her to play poker, '_Don't bluff unless you're prepared to lose'_. "What?" she asks him.

"If that's what you want I'll leave," Oliver threatens her, pushing her and she hates that he's trying to lay everything off on her so she pushes back.

"Fine." She turns away and grabs the tape, wrapping her knuckles with precision even as her heart pounds in her ears and her hands threaten to shake uncontrollably.

"Okay, then." Oliver turns and walks out. Chloe flinches as she hears the door slam behind him and feels more than hears Dean come up behind her.

"Chloe?" he asks cautiously and she spins around.

"Don't." She shakes her head and Dean backs off, walking onto the mat. "I need to not think for a minute, can we do that?"

"Okay." He motions for her to come after him and she smiles and for a second Dean is scared.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe smiles as she watches Dean walk into the Mess Hall limping slightly the next morning. She looks down at his right knee wondering if the swelling's gone down any and feels only marginally bad about injuring it in the first place. It was sort of his fault; he'd left his right side wide open. She looks back up at Dean's face to find him watching her watching him. She resists the urge to blush under his gaze and simply raises an eyebrow. Dean for his part simply winks at her before shoving Sam aside to grab a cup of coffee.

Chloe is so busy watching Dean she doesn't even notice Lois sliding onto the bench next to her. "Oliver left last night," Lois says her voice barely a whisper.

"I know." Chloe sips her coffee and refuses to look at her cousin.

"I mean left, left," Lois clarified. "Without orders, without permission."

"I know." Chloe feels her teeth grinding together and knows this is the beginning of a daylong headache.

Lois seems shocked at first the regains her ability to speak. "Why did Oliver leave last night?" she asks.

"We had a disagreement." Chloe tears a corner off of her toast and slips it under the table to Malachi.

"You had a fight so he left?" Lois scoots closer. "Well what kind of fight was it?"

"A bad one," Chloe admits closing her eyes. The dog lays his head on her knee and she runs her fingers through its fur.

"Was it about Dean?" Lois frowns and Chloe's eyes shoot open finally turning to look at her cousin.

"What? No. Why would it be about Dean?" Chloe asks, honestly confused.

"Come on, Chloe." Lois offers her cousin a look that says, _'for someone so smart, sometimes you can be so dumb'_.

"No, it was about-" Chloe falters for a second then shakes her head, her anger from the day before coming back. "It was about Oliver not being able to grow up and take orders from me."

"You mean take orders from you and Dean." Lois grabs a piece of toast from Chloe's tray and bites into it. "Come on, for years it was you and Oliver teaming up against the world and suddenly with no warning he's pushed aside for Dean." Chloe glares at her cousin.

"It's not like that." Chloe shakes her head desperately. "If we were fighting some Meta freak of the week I'd go to Oliver, but we're not. We're in a war with the forces of hell here Lois. This is what Dean does, this is what he knows, this is what he's lived for the past twenty-eight years of his life. I'm not shoving Oliver aside for Dean; I'm making the best use of my resources."

"Ouch." Lois winces. "That came off slightly clinical. Making best use of your resources?"

"I can't afford to be anything less than clinical right now." Chloe stands up annoyed. "Don't you get that? I can't care that Oliver got his panties in a bunch because I didn't ask his opinion on something, because he's not my go-to guy anymore. I can't worry about the fact that he's having a hard time realizing that I'm the one in charge now. I have over a hundred other people out there, constantly looking to me for answers, for guidance and whether I ask Oliver or Dean, the final decision is on me. I'm the one that sends them out there every day, most likely to their deaths. I'm the one that has to make the choice. I'm the one that has to live with the consequences, so if Oliver wants to run off and have a temper tantrum that's fine with me, one less person that I have to worry about."

Chloe moves to storm off, but Lois puts a halting hand on her arm. She turns back, her breathing heavy to stare at her cousin. "I get that." Lois swallows. "I mean I don't think I _really_ got it until just now. I still don't think I can fully understand what you're going through. But think about what you just said. You said you were using your resources to their best ability? Was Dean really the person to ask about trusting Kandorians? Does Dean have the history with them that you and Oliver have? I don't think there's really any way that I can understand a tenth of what you're going through right now and if having Dean, if trusting in Dean is what helps you get through this then that's great. But there are other people here, people who have knowledge, who have something to contribute and yes, while you make the final decision, and you do, we all accepted that a long time ago, you can't do everything on your own."

Chloe freezes because Lois is right. She hadn't realized until that moment how much she's come to rely on Dean for practically everything, how much she's come to value his opinion over everyone else's and Lois is right, he isn't exactly the authority on Kandorians. "Oh wow." Chloe sits back down. "I'm kind of a bitch."

Lois offers her a lopsided smile. "Yeah." Chloe turns to her and laughs. "But you kind of have to be right now and we get that, we really do but this has been really hard on Oliver, you've got to cut him some slack."

"Why has this been harder on Oliver than anyone else?" Chloe asks confused.

"Oh come on, Chloe." Lois stares at her cousin as if she'd just asked why you need to breathe to live. "The guy's like madly in love with you."

Chloe really has no response for that except to say, "I know" and that makes her sound even more horrible if that's possible. She'd thought with time that it would go away, sort of fade into the background but of course she can't be that lucky. Dean sits down next to Chloe and she turns to him as if he can offer her some sort of opinion or answer or anything.

Her face causes Dean to pause and set his plate down slowly. "What?" He looks to Chloe then Lois and then Sam who sits down across from them. "Do I have something on my face?"

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe types something on the keyboard and then stops, taking a deep breath. "Cass." She turns around. "You've been standing there for fifteen minutes, is this another one of your creepy stalker moments or did you need something?"

Castiel pushes himself off the wall and walks further into the room. "Oliver left camp last night."

"Yes, I know." Chloe squeezes the bridge of her nose; she can feel another headache coming on. "We had a fight. He left. Could I have been a bit more sensitive? Yes, but this is not all my fault. He's acting like a child and I truly do not have the time to hold his hand through this whole thing. If you're here to tell me I need to apologize, I know that. I would go out there right now and find him and bring him back but I think the only way to do that would be to choose between him and Dean and you can save your breath because that's not going to happen."

"I was merely going to tell you that if he's not back tonight we'll need to find someone to take over his patrol," Castiel says.

"Oh." Chloe pauses slightly embarrassed. "Uh, Jason can take it." Chloe shakes her head. "Why isn't Jo the one telling me this?"

"She asked me to tell you," Castiel says. "She seemed slightly frightened by the prospect of coming anywhere near you today. I suppose I can understand why now."

"Cass, I really don't want another lecture," Chloe warns him.

"I don't lecture," he says offended by the accusation.

"No, you don't," Chloe corrects herself. "You simply stare at me with that look on your face. That _'I am an angel of the Lord and I know better than you'_ face. My dad used to have a face just like that. I didn't particularly care for it on him, so you can imagine how I feel about it on you."

"I'm just going to say one thing," Castiel says and Chloe wants to laugh, knowing there was no way he could pass up this opportunity. "I don't think it's about choosing. Oliver knew you before. He's a part of your life, a part of the life you had before all of this and that part of your life is just as important as all the new…parts. He knows you; he knows parts of you that Dean might never really understand because Oliver has been through things with you that Dean hasn't. They both have something different and equally important to offer you and I think you need both of them."

"Well thank you, that was completely unhelpful," she snaps at him, hating herself for the words even as they come out of her mouth. He simply stares at her and she sighs. "Was there something else?"

"You've changed," Castiel says after a minute.

She thinks about the months she's been in this camp, the hunts she's been on, the wild goose chases after the prophecy, the demons she's fought and killed and the people she's lost in those fights. But the hardest thing, the thing that she can never forget, not even for a second, the secret that she's been keeping from everyone for so long. The secret that she's going to kill God. "I've had to," Chloe says turning back to her computer screen.

"I know that," Castiel assures her. "But…"

"What?" Chloe turns to him and she suddenly looks more tired than he's seen her in a very long time.

"I miss you." He shrugs before turning around and walking out.

She knows what it must seem like to everyone else, that she's just turned into this cold hearted bitch and if that's what they need to believe then they're more than welcome to their assumptions. But it's not like that it hurts to thinks about the person she used to be, the person she had been with Castiel, the person she wishes she could be now. It hurts because she knows that she can't be that person anymore and she can't be that person anymore because the person who she was then wouldn't be able to make the decisions she has to make now. Chloe stares at the closed door that Castiel just disappeared through and sighs. "I miss me too," Chloe whispers before taking a deep breath, one day, maybe she can be that person again, but for now, there are more important things to do so she simply gets back to work.

**April 30, 2011**

Oliver sits on the top of the Clock Tower and stares at the city down below. People are rushing to and from work without a clue that in six months or three months or next week, the world could be over. They have no idea that a war is being fought right now for their souls. Half of their souls are probably not even worth saving.

He thought it would be easy, leaving the camp behind, returning to his normal life, but it's turning out more difficult than he imagined. Being back at the office, the place he has always felt the most comfortable and the most at home suddenly makes him feel awkward and out of place. The uniform he'd adopted at camp which consisted of his favorite ratty jeans and hoodie and a permanent five o'clock stubble makes him stand out like a sore thumb when he steps off the elevator into a sea of tailored suits.

He finally gave in two days ago and pulled one of his old suits out of the closet and slipped it on. It felt strange, it still feels strange and as he sits atop the Clock Tower, he loosens the tie, pulls it over his head and drops it down to the city street below.

Work itself was suddenly a foreign concept to him as well. The past months he's spent in almost non-stop training at the camp, honing his skills and even learning a couple of new ones serve him no purpose out in the real world. During the day it seems trivial, useless to sit in conference rooms all day and well into the night arguing about contract clauses and inventive ways to lower shipping costs for their overseas manufactures. Going out at night as the Green Arrow is done on autopilot, he hardly has to put any effort into at all.

Surprisingly, it's his personal accountant, Jerry, that poses the biggest challenge. He's been hounding Oliver since he got back, wanting to sit down with him for a few hours. According to his many, many e-mails, all he wants is to go over Oliver's most recent, somewhat schizophrenic and slightly extravagant purchases. Attached to the e-mail was a list of all the things Oliver's bought in the last year and scanning over it briefly he can see just why Jerry might have some questions. The problem is at this time, Oliver doesn't have any answers, so he's been using every trick and skill in his repertoire to avoid the man and it has not been easy. There have been one too many close calls; Oliver is starting to suspect that Jerry is actually some sort of secret ninja accountant.

He is determined to rough it out however. He's too proud to admit his wrongdoing and go crawling back to Chloe to ask for forgiveness. But also he's scared that even if he shows up on his hands and knees, Chloe won't take him back. He hears the distinct sound of fabric flapping in the wind but doesn't bother to turn around. "Did Chloe send you after me?"

"No," Castiel says and sits next to Oliver.

Oliver flinches, he's not sure what's more pathetic, that he wanted her to chase after him or that she didn't even bother. "Then what are you doing here?" He turns to face the angel. "I thought you were a good little soldier, always followed orders."

"She didn't tell me not to come after you," Castiel says, confused by Oliver's sarcasm.

"Then why are you here?" Oliver asks turning his attention back to the city.

"Because she needs you." Castiel squints in the sun and Oliver snorts.

"She doesn't need me." He looks around the city. "I really don't think she needs anyone now," he argues then mentally cringes. "Except maybe Dean."

"Yes," Castiel agrees. "Right now, to get through this, she needs Dean. But she needs you too. You're the strongest connection she has to her old life, to the life she had before. She's been doing everything in her power to push that life away, to blur the lines but she can't, you can't let her. Because one day this will be over and when that happens, she's going to need that old life to fall back on. Trust me, I know her and I know that deep down inside the only thing that's keeping her going is the hope that one day she can go back to being the person that she used to be."

"I don't think I'm strong enough," Oliver finally admits out loud. "I don't think I'm strong enough to stand there while she…I can't."

"You have to," Castiel says. "Because she needs you to be strong enough. It's not fair but in the coming months I don't think much is going to be fair anymore. We might as well get used to it."

Castiel is gone before Oliver can even formulate a comeback to that. Oliver might be feeling a little sorry for himself at the moment because it feels lately like no one really needs him anymore. His office is running more smoothly than when he was actually there on a daily basis. His team doesn't come to him anymore; they turn to Chloe for guidance for orders. He's not sure he believes Castiel, not sure he believes Chloe needs him but he knows one thing. He knows that he needs Chloe and he just hopes he's strong enough to be there when she stops needing him.

**May 2, 2010**

Chloe stares into her coffee cup debating on whether it's better to go hungry than eat what's sitting in the bowl in front of her. "It's not that bad," Lois says, swallowing with only a bit of difficulty. "If you drown it in butter and a little bit of sugar," she adds. "And maybe some ketchup." She thinks suddenly and stands to go in search of something, anything that might make breakfast palatable.

Ellen has declared the newly created dish to be called oatgrits. It's a 60/40 mix of grits and oatmeal. It was made out of necessity when she realized earlier that morning she didn't have nearly enough oatmeal to feed everyone and she'd be damned if she was going to make a second meal. Chloe was determined to suffer through it though, seeing as how it's her fault. Jo had tried to explain something to her about ordering more supplies for the sudden influx of recruits and she'd brushed her off, promising to do it in an hour and ended up burying it in a pile on her desk.

Her mind hasn't been in the best place and she totally blames Oliver. She looks around the Mess Hall and sees everyone else dutifully shoveling the gruel into their mouths as fast as they can so they don't have to taste it. They're doing everything in their power not to look at her because they all know it's her fault and they all think they know why.

The rumors of Oliver's departure from the camp have become greatly exaggerated in the week and a half he's been gone. They started out pretty close to the truth. That Chloe and Oliver had a fight, he got mad and left. The only thing they agree on is that the fight had something to do with Dean. Some are saying that Dean got in between Chloe and Oliver, others that Oliver got in between Chloe and Dean, and still another that even suggests Chloe was the one to come in between Oliver and Dean. She managed to trace that particular rumor back to Bart actually. According to him 90 percent of the females at the camp at some sort of crush on either Dean or Oliver and he was hoping starting the rumor might persuade a few of them to look his way.

Chloe wishes she could see the funny in the situation but it's really just more of an annoyance now because the entire story has ballooned out of control. According to the latest version she overheard this morning, their small shouting match has been turned into a fist fight where Dean ended up kicking Oliver out of the camp, physically. Dean's still slightly perceptible limp only adds fuel to their fire.

Chloe looks two tables over where he is spooning his oatgrits into Sam's bowl while Dinah distracts the younger Winchester with the undeniable power of early morning cleavage. Dean must be able to feel her watching him because he turns to her with a huge smile and winks, bringing a finger to his lips and Chloe nods. She's made it a point to keep her distance from Dean, only spending time around him when she absolutely has to, as not to give verification to any of the rumors, but even that's backfiring, as now they're just claiming Chloe and Dean are in a lover's spat over the fight.

"Okay." Lois sits back down, condiments spilling out of her arms. Chloe spies everything from ketchup to maple syrup to sriracha. "I think we can make this thing edible." Lois looks determined and Chloe laughs. "So what do you think sweet?" Lois asks, holding a bottle of chocolate sauce in her right hand. "Or savory?" She picks up a bottle of soy sauce with her left. Before Chloe can offer an opinion Lois smiles evilly and starts to pour both of them in.

She stirs the bowl energetically and Chloe is glad she hasn't eaten any of her breakfast because looking at Lois' bowl is turning her stomach. Lois loads her spoon takes a deep breath and then takes a big bite. The concoction could only have been on her tongue for a maximum of half a second before she spits it back into her bowl. "That was foul."

"Grits, Oatmeal, butter, sugar, chocolate sauce and soy sauce, how could that have possibly gone wrong?" Chloe snorts.

Lois grabs a napkin and wipes her tongue. "If you had just made the order instead of brooding about Oliver, I'd be having plain old oatmeal right now so you can keep your opinions to yourself," Lois says, then looks up shocked. She's the first one to actually call Chloe on the order mishap and the brooding about Oliver.

Before she can defend herself, she hears the familiar roar of Oliver's Ducati flying around the curves of the lake and coming to a stop in front of the Mess Hall. Chloe closes her eyes, wondering how he got past the front gate and more importantly what she's supposed to do now. She looks up to see every eye in the room on her, all of them wondering the exact same thing.

She stands up, her coffee cup in hand and turns around, heading for the door. As she passes by Dean's table, he nods slightly at her before standing up and following. They walk out in the open grassy area where Oliver is sliding off his bike, pulling off his helmet. He takes a deep breath and sighs in satisfaction before he sees her standing there her coffee held in front of her almost defensively. "Hey," he greets her.

She has no idea what to do here so she just greets him right back, "Hey." She knows he's waiting for her, waiting for her to do something, either forgive or condemn him. A small, petty part of her wants to order him away, remind him that rules are rules and if you leave you can't come back. That he didn't care enough to stay and work it out so he should have just stayed gone. That just because they're old friends doesn't mean he's the exception to the rules. But a bigger part of her, the part of her that she knew would win out in the end just misses her friend.

She can see they've accumulated a crowd now, they're not standing and staring, they're not that bold. They have all slowed their paces quite a bit though and there is a fair amount of rubber necking. She wishes they could do this quietly but it almost has to be done in public if only to keep the rumors to a minimum.

"How did it go?" Chloe asks throwing him a bone, hoping he can think fast enough on his feet to come up with something, anything so the both of them can save face. "Did you find something?" she asks, the taste of the coffee stale and bitter on her tongue.

Oliver's whole body seems to sag with relief and he grabs a hold of the bone. He knows how hard that was for her to do, how easy it would have been to turn her back and send him away. He's starting to think maybe Castiel is a little bit right and maybe she needs him too. "I did find something," Oliver says with a slow smile. "On your prophecy." Chloe's eyes light up when she realizes he's not making something up, he's telling the truth and he really has learned something about the prophecy. Even Dean offers him an amused smile.

"You found the prophecy?" Chloe asks him, excitement coursing through her veins. Vaguely she passes the coffee cup behind her, having no doubt by now that people have trickled out of the Mess Hall. Sure enough, someone grabs the cup from her.

"I found a lead on your prophecy," Oliver corrects her.

"Step into my office." Chloe smiles and heads across the lawn.

Dean steps forward and looks Oliver up and down. "Nice suit," he says with raised eyebrows.

Oliver looks down and seems surprised to find that he's still in his Armani slacks and jacket. "It's the costume for my secret identity," Oliver offers.

"Who are you supposed to be then?" Dean snorts. "Captain Douche bag?" Dean turns and follows Chloe to her cabin and Oliver looks up to see Castiel standing there staring at him.

"So glad I came back." Oliver sighs and follows after Dean, he misses the smile on Castiel' face.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Everyone's gathered together in Chloe's cabin Oliver feels slightly strange as all the attention is turned onto him. This is Chloe's room, it was dubbed the Situation Room by Bart after the computer system was put in and all the screens installed. This is the place where Chloe does her work and gives her orders and it feels weird being the center of attention in this room. "So." Oliver clears his throat and looks at Chloe. "You've been looking for this thing for almost six months now and you haven't found anything about it right? No stories, no sightings nothing?"

"Yes, let's do rub that in as the first thing you do when you get back," Chloe says jokingly except it might be too early because everyone freezes. "Continue," Chloe says hesitantly.

"We've been going on the assumption that if it's not still buried in the Temple under the mountain-"

"Which I can assure you it is not," Castiel interrupts.

"Then a hunter must have it hidden away somewhere safe," Oliver finishes.

"Yeah." Chloe nods. When she first started to look for the prophecy, she remembered a story Dean had told her about his Dad having an old storage unit full of crap. There were tons of things that were too dangerous to keep in reach of the public, too dangerous to let fall into the wrong hands. They'd been going on the assumption that was the fate of the prophecy, sitting alone collecting dust on a shelf somewhere. It was possible the hunter might not even know what they had.

Chloe had been pouring over every entry on the website, every hunter's account searching for something, even if it was a passing mention of a box that couldn't be opened. They'd found a few boxes actually but when retrieved, they turned out to be nothing more than plain boxes. Some contained a cursed object, some of them were empty, and one of them simply housed an impeccably preserved pair of shoes from the 1920's. None of them contained the prophecy.

"It's an ancient mystical object. Who else besides hunters would know about it, would bother looking for it, would even want it?" Dean pipes up to defend Chloe.

Oliver smiles. "Rich people." It's like a massive switch is flipped on and everyone in the room utters a collective 'Oh'. "Rich people collect things, all kind of things. They collect things they think are valuable, things other people think are valuable. They collect things because they have the money to collect things, the stranger, the more obscure, the better."

"Rich people are weird." Dean shakes his head.

"Tell me about it." Oliver smiles at him. "The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. So I put out the word to a couple of acquaintances that I know who love to collect the more obscure items. They put me in touch with a couple of less than reputable guys whose sole job it is to acquire the more obscure items and I actually got a hit. Apparently the last person known to be in possession of a box fitting our description was a high-end fence named Bela Talbot."

Dean, Sam, and Bobby groan practically simultaneously and Chloe turns her attention to them. "You know her?"

"You could say that." Dean runs a hand through his hair. "We've had dealings with her in the past."

"She shot me," Sam grumbles annoyed rubbing his shoulder absentmindedly.

"Right, well do you know how to get in touch with her?" Chloe asks, the prospect of being this close to the actual prophecy making her less sympathetic to Sam's pain than she normally would be.

"She's dead," Dean breaks it to her.

"Awesome." Bart turns to Chloe. "Cause they couldn't have just made one thing easy for us."

"Where's the fun in that?" Chloe smiles. "So what do we do? Surely you have some experience in communicating with the…beyond. Is there a spell or a ritual?"

"You're serious?" Dean asks her. "You want to try and contact a dead woman?"

"This is the first actual lead we've ever gotten on the prophecy," Chloe says. "So if I have to talk to a dead woman, then I'm going to talk to a dead woman." She looks expectantly at Dean.

"Actually." Sam tilts his head. "I have an idea."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe opens the door to one of the Jeeps Oliver bought for the camp and turns back to Sam. "So this Missouri woman, you really think she can help us talk to Bela?"

"It's our best bet." Sam puts his hands in his pockets. "She can sense the dead, no reason to believe she can't also communicate with them."

"And you think she'll help us?" Chloe asks.

"I don't see why not." Sam shrugs.

"Okay then, Dean and I will go get this Missouri woman and hopefully by this time tomorrow we'll know where the Prophecy is." Chloe looks at Dean expectantly.

"Actually." Dean coughs. "I've got a few things to do here. I was going to put the new guys through some drills. And we need to make more demon-ready ammo and you know Bobby and Lucas don't really trust any of the others to do it right."

"Oh, sure." Chloe nods.

"Besides, this whole thing is Oliver's lead. He came up with it, he ran it down, and I really think he should be the one to see it through," Dean offers.

"Thanks." Oliver stands up straighter. "I'd really like that."

"Well." Chloe climbs in the jeep and closes the door. "We should probably head out."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"I need to apologize," Oliver says as Chloe turns off the interstate. They've spent the first three hours of the drive making companionable small talk and purposely avoiding the giant elephant in the car with them.

"You really don't," Chloe says, keeping her eyes dead ahead on the road. "Right or left?"

"Left." Oliver checks the map. "And I really do." Oliver reaches out and grabs her arm. It's reminiscent of when he grabbed her arm a few days ago but this time it's gentler, there's no anger in his voice or in his grip. "I was acting like a sulking teenager. I was throwing a temper tantrum and I was way out of line. I had no right to question you. You're right, you make the decisions, and you give the orders."

"No." Chloe closes her eyes briefly. She supposes the car is as good a place as any to have this conversation, they can't exactly run away and she thinks that this might have been what Dean had in mind when he suggested Oliver go with her. Sneaky bastard. "I mean yes, I make the decisions, and I give the orders. When it comes down to it, it's on me."

"I just can't be like Dean." Oliver sighs. "He never questions you, follows you blindly. I can't do that, not after everything we've been through."

Chloe snorts and turns to him. "Is that what you think?" Oliver frowns confused. "You think Dean just follows my every order, never questions, and never complains?"

"That's what it looks like," Oliver points out.

Chloe laughs again. "Look, there are things that Dean and I don't agree on. He has a very black and white view of everything and you and I both know that there are always shades of grey. We argue a lot. He screams at me and I scream at him."

"When and where does all this screaming take place?" Oliver asks her confused.

"Away from camp. Usually in the clearing beyond the boat house on the other side of the lake." Chloe smiles. "Generally at night."

Oliver annoyingly feels a bit more respect for Dean now that he knows he stands up to Chloe. "There are a lot of calls I'm going to make, I have made, because they need to be made, not because I like them or even agree with them, but because it has to be done. When you don't agree with them fight me on them, just you know not in front of everyone else. I can't have you undermining me, questioning me in front of them, because if you're questioning me, they'll start to question me."

"I understand." Oliver nods.

"Look, I know that even if he doesn't agree with something, Dean will still follow my orders, still do whatever it is he doesn't want to do because he trusts me. What I need from you, what I really need is to know that even if you don't always agree with me, you've got my back."

"Always," Oliver promises her, hurt that she could ever question that. Though he supposes his actions the past few days have put that loyalty into question. "You really value my opinion as much as Dean's?" he asks because as lame as it sounds he needs that reassurance.

"You know me Oliver, you know how I think. We've been through things together, gone down the same holes and dug ourselves back up again. You've been places with me that Dean hasn't, can't ever go. You know how far I can go and still get pulled back. Dean doesn't," Chloe admits to him.

"So what you're saying is you need me to be your moral center?" Oliver scrunches up his nose. "Wow, we're all doomed to hell."

Chloe laughs and things feel like they might be getting back to normal. As normal as it can be anyway. She turns down the next street and slows as she comes to a house on the corner. "I think this is the place." Chloe stops the car and puts it in park.

"What?" Oliver looks out the window confused. "How do you know?"

Chloe gets out of the car and nods at the woman standing on the front steps. The woman who has to be Missouri. "Chloe, Oliver, about damn time you got here." She walks down a few steps and stars at them. "I've been waiting since five o'clock yesterday."

"We got here as fast as we could." Chloe chuckles at her.

Missouri snorts. "Barely drove five miles over the speed limit. It's not like it's the end of the world or anything." Chloe and Oliver exchange a look. "Well, come on in, we don't have all day." Oliver and Chloe look confused. "Boy, I know you were raised better than that, my bags are in the hallway." Oliver seems to come to his senses and nods in understanding. "And Chloe, the bathroom's first door on your left but you have to jiggle the handle or the toilet will keep running."

"Yes ma'am." Chloe doesn't even realize until that moment how badly she has to use the bathroom. She runs past Missouri to into the house.

"Slow down, or you're going to break the vase in the hall," Missouri turns to tell her.

"Huh?" Chloe stops, bumping into the edge of the table and knocking a vase to the floor. "Oh, sorry." She looks up sheepishly.

Missouri sighs and shakes her head. "It's my fault, I knew that was going to happen. I should have just moved it." She turns around to Oliver who is staring at her strangely.

"Did Dean call you and tell you we were coming?" he asks.

"Of course not." Missouri snorts.

"Then how did you know?" Oliver crosses his arms over his chest.

"I'm psychic child." Missouri shakes her head at him. "How do you think I knew?"

"Right." Oliver nods still unsure.

"Don't take that tone with me boy." She glares at him. "Now make yourself useful and go get the broom."

"Yes ma'am." Oliver walks off in the direction of the kitchen.

The ride back to camp is somehow more strained than the ride there because it seems, to Oliver at least, that Missouri is under the impression that he's not good for much and feels the need to tell him this, in various ways, throughout the whole drive. It started with an innocent enough comment, "_Glad you finally swallowed your pride and apologized. This poor girl has enough going on right now without having to worry about you and your tantrums." _It evolved from there to criticisms on his driving; it was too fast, then too slow. Then she didn't like his taste in music, but when he turned the radio off she got annoyed because it was too quiet. By the time they were pulling up into the camp she was finishing up a tirade on how Queen Industries was contributing to the decimation of the planet.

Oliver barely resists the urge to point out that they are the leaders in the Corporate Green movement, that their projects are more energy efficient and environmentally conscious than any other organization out there, and also that seeing as how the world is likely going to end in a biblical showdown he thinks recycling is really the least of their problems but Chloe simply shakes her head and he bites his tongue.

"Sam!" Missouri smiles climbing out of the car and giving the younger Winchester a big hug. Chloe and Oliver follow her out. "Dean." She nods coldly at the older Winchester and Chloe tries and fails to hide her smile. She slips one arm in Chloe's and the other in Sam's and pulls them away. "Fill me in on everything, then we can get started on this little séance you want me to do."

"Sure." Sam nods. She stops as she notices Oliver and Dean following closely behind them and she gives Oliver a glare.

"What now?" he asks exasperated.

"My bags," she says as if it's obvious. "Bring them to my cabin. I'm sure that Jo's set up my cabin right?" This question is directed at Dean who fumbles for an answer and Missouri snorts. "Can't do anything right."

"We didn't realize you'd be staying." Dean tries to defend himself.

"It's the end of the world, of course I'm staying," she snaps at him. "Where else would I go?"

"Dean, have Jo ready a cabin for Missouri," Chloe says softly trying to defuse the situation.

"Aren't you a sweetheart?" Missouri pats Chloe's arm and Chloe beams.

"Sure thing." Dean nods pulling out his phone to send Jo a text.

"And I'm not sleeping on any bunk bed." She laughs sweetly and yet at the same time glaring menacingly at him.

"We don't have any single cabins." Dean raises his eyebrow.

"I'm sure Jo can come up with something," Chloe says pointedly and Dean sighs and nods as they walk off to Chloe's cabin.

Dean finishes sending his text to Jo, telling her she's going to have to somehow come up with a single cabin and letting her know that if she has any complaints, she can bring it up with Chloe. "So everything went okay then?" Dean asks Oliver.

"She hates me." Oliver grunts pulling the bags out of the trunk.

As if sensing that she's being talked about Missouri turns around. "Be careful with those," she yells at Oliver, narrowing her eyes.

Dean smiles and claps him on the back. "Welcome to the club." Dean grabs the other bag and helps Oliver haul them to the main room until Jo can get the cabin set up. "But I meant-"

"I know what you meant," Oliver says dropping his bag. "We're good." He turns to Dean. "No more breakdowns or storm offs that are better suited to a reality TV show."

"That's good to know," Dean says.

Oliver turns to leave then stops and looks at Dean. "I don't really know her anymore." Oliver finally voices his fears out loud. "Not as well as I used to."

"No," Dean says simply. "You don't."

"I kind of want to blame you for that." Oliver admits to him.

"If you need to." Dean shrugs.

"I need to know that you're-" Oliver pauses unsure how to word it exactly. "Chloe is special."

"I know," Dean tells him.

"I mean even before all this, before angels and demons before the end of the world and strange bone carvings—she's special. She's probably the most truly unique person I've ever met in my life. She'll do anything for anyone. She cares about everyone so much, sometimes even more than she cares for herself. She's so amazing that half the time I can't believe I've ever managed to actually meet someone like her," Oliver tells him.

"I know all this Queen." Dean leans against the door frame. "Anyone who spends more than an hour with Chloe knows all this."

"I know." Oliver runs his hands through his hair. "I know. It's just…to do what she needs to do, she needs me to back off and she needs you to step up and I can't do that unless I know, unless you can promise me…"

"I've got her." Dean nods without Oliver even having to finish the sentiment. "I've got her."

"Okay," Oliver says.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Two hours later, Sam and Chloe have filled Missouri in on everything they know, everything that's happened and they're all gathered back in the Situation Room. "So you want me to contact Bela so she can tell you where this Prophecy is?" Missouri asks Chloe.

"Can you do it?" Chloe asks hopefully.

"I can do it." Missouri says slowly. "I'm just not sure I should."

"What does that mean?" Dean leans forward a bit.

"Nothing." Missouri takes a deep breath and smiles at Chloe. "Have you ever had a séance before?" Chloe shakes her head and Missouri smiles bigger.

She has them all sit around the table in a circle and hold hands. She doesn't bother with lighting candles or incense or pulling out a cheesy crystal ball because as she's told Dean, "_I'm not some con artist carnival psychic who pretends to talk to dead through a freaking paper weight. Now make yourself useful and be quiet." _

She doesn't say much, she doesn't really say anything at all. There is no '_calling upon the spirits of the underworld_' or any of that nonsense. She simply closes her eyes and breathes deeply. She makes a few undecipherable noises but is otherwise completely silent. "When's this going to start?" Dean whispers out of the side of his mouth to Chloe.

Without even opening her eyes Missouri slides her hand out of Deans and uses it to smack him upside the head. "Boy, don't be rude." Dean winces and rubs his head. "I'm having a conversation here."

"You're not even talking." Dean protests and she cracks an eye to glare at him.

"I'm talking to her psychically. I wouldn't expect you to understand." She snorts and closes her eye again. After a few more minutes of silence, Missouri opens both of her eyes. "She knows where it is, but she won't help unless we give her a reprieve."

"A reprieve?" Chloe shakes her head confused.

"She's in hell," Dean speaks up. "She made a deal with a Crossroads Demon. That's how she died, her ten years were up and she had to uphold her part of the bargain. So she's in hell, she's been there for a couple of years now which is like decades down there. If we give her a body, she gets a break, if only for a few minutes. That's all you live for down there, the prospect, the idea that at some point you might actually get a break."

"Is it dangerous?" Chloe asks Missouri.

"Not exactly." She looks at Chloe. "Only if she refuses to leave, but consenting to this is a deal like any other. As long as you make strict specifications, she should adhere to them."

"No way." Dean shakes his head. "No way, no how."

"I need that Prophecy, she wants a body," Chloe says. "I don't see the big deal?"

"That's because you don't know Bela," Dean tells her. "She can't be trusted, every word that comes out of her mouth is a lie and that was before she spent decades in hell."

"She shot me," Sam reiterates.

Dean nods at Sam as if that's all the proof they could need. "She could just be yanking us around and I'm not taking that chance."

"You aren't," Chloe tells him. "I am, and this is the only shot I've got so it's not like I really have a choice in the matter."

"You could just not do it," Dean offers and Chloe shakes her head. "Okay then, I'll do it."

"You can't." Missouri frowns. "She says she'll only talk to you; only tell _you_ what she knows."

Dean curses under his breath and sits back down, all out of options. "Sam?" Chloe turns to him for his opinion.

"Did I mention that she shot me?" Sam offers.

"So I'll make sure I put away my gun," Chloe says. When no one else has anything to say Chloe turns to Oliver. "What do you think?"

Oliver seems surprised at first, glances at Dean who looks like he'll hop over the table and strangle Oliver at one wrong word. "I think this prophecy is about you, I think you're the only one who can say whether or not the risk is worth the reward."

Chloe smiles at him and Dean glares even harder, she turns to Missouri and rubs her hands together. "Okay, what do I need to do?"

"Chloe," Dean calls her name and she ignores him.

"Not now." She brushes him off.

"You need to set a time limit," Missouri tells her.

"What do you think? Ten minutes?" Chloe bites her lip. "Is that too long? Not long enough?"

"Chloe," Dean calls her name again. "I need to talk to you."

"Not now Dean," she snaps this time and the whole room goes eerily quiet.

"Excuse us," Dean says slowly, grabbing Chloe's arm gently and pulling her into the bedroom. He quietly closes the door behind them.

"What the hell was that?" She chuckles slightly as Dean begins to pace.

"You're not doing this," Dean tells her.

"I am doing this actually." Chloe makes a move to walk past him and he grabs her arm more strongly this time. "Dean?" She looks down at his fingers curled around her elbow and then up at his face. "You really want to let go of me."

"Not until you listen." Dean steers her away from the door. "God you are so blinded by this quest of yours, this stupid prophecy that you're rushing into this thing without thinking it through," Dean snaps.

Chloe sets her jaw when she realizes he's serious. "I thought it through and I made my decision, what I don't know is why we're still talking about it."

"We're still talking about it because you're not listening to me," Dean tells her.

Chloe scoffs. "You know, Oliver was just talking about how you don't make waves, about how you follow my lead like a good little…"

"Like a good little soldier?" Dean laughs. "I guess that's how it looks to everyone huh. Like I follow you around like a lap dog, always there with a yes ma'am, never a no ma'am. Just waiting for whatever scraps you want to through my way."

"That's not what I meant." Chloe sinks down into the bed. "And that's not how I see you."

"I know." Dean deflates. "You just…you don't understand what you're agreeing to here."

"I'm loaning out my body for ten maybe fifteen minutes, it's not that big a deal." Chloe softens slightly, realizing that made her sound a bit like a prostitute.

"It is that big a deal." Dean takes a breath and sits on the bed next to her. He obviously feels passionate about this so she can at least give him the benefit of the doubt and hear him through. "When you let her borrow your body, whether it's for ten minutes or two hours, it doesn't matter, she'll be in your head."

"I'm not worried about-" Chloe stands but Dean's not finished.

"More importantly you'll be in hers," Dean says and this makes Chloe pause. "She's been in hell for three years our time, that's centuries down there. The things she's seen, the things she's felt, the things she's done, you'll see it all, and you'll feel it all. Do you get that?"

Chloe sinks back down to the bed, her body suddenly very heavy. "OK."

"OK?" Dean asks. "OK, what?"

"Okay, now I know." Chloe stands and walks to the door and Dean follows her. "And my decision is still the same."

"I don't understand…" Dean slams his hand against the door keeping it closed and Chloe turns around. He's right there, in front of her. They're standing chest to chest, nose to nose and Dean leans his forehead against hers in exhaustion. "I don't understand why you need to go through all this to read something you already know."

Chloe closes her eyes and she thinks maybe she can tell him, maybe she can tell him and he'll understand and she doesn't have to do this alone. "I just…I need to see it." Dean lets out a deep breath and pushes himself away from the door, turning his back on her. "I get that you don't understand and I wish I could explain it to you, but I can't. I just need you to trust me."

"Fine." Dean nods and walks past her, opening the door.

"Dean." Chloe reaches out to grab his arm but he pulls away.

"I said fine," he calls over his shoulder and walks back in the room. "Alright then, let's get this started."

No one dares move or breathe until Chloe follows Dean into the room. "You heard the man, let's do this." She looks over at Missouri. "So what did we decide? Do we need to go up to fifteen minutes?"

"She's agreed to ten." Missouri nods, frowning between her and Dean. "Whenever you're ready."

"I'm ready." Chloe takes a deep breath. "So how will we-" She stops mid-sentence, falling into the chair and closing her eyes.

"Chloe?" Dean asks stepping forward.

Chloe opens her eyes and tilts her head. She smiles at Dean and it's strange, it's not Chloe's smile at all and he steps back. Chloe stands up and stretches her arms into the sky. "You have absolutely no idea how amazing it feels to stretch your arms." Her voice has taken on a slight Estuary English accent. "Or how divine it feels to simply have arms again. It's been ages." She pulls her hands down and studies her fingers.

"Bela," Dean snarls.

She looks at Dean. "I suppose you would actually know how amazing that feels."

"Can we cut the small talk please?" Dean cuts her off. "We've got ten minutes and I'd rather not waste it taking a trip down the memory lane to hell with you."

"Oh I'm sorry," Bela snaps at him. "We can't all be as lucky as you. To have an army of angels lay siege to the denizens of hell just to pull our asses out of the pit."

"Yeah, well it hasn't been all sunshine and roses since I got back," Dean snaps at her.

"I'm sorry; you just took me away from having my very own entrails fed to me." Bela turns to Dean annoyed. "How did you spend your weekend?" Dean has the decency to look ashamed at least.

"There's an apocalypse going on in case you didn't get the memo," Sam interrupts.

"Oh Sam, still bitter I see." Bela puts her hands on her hips.

"You shot me."

"Four years ago for you, and a hell of a lot longer for me," Bela reminds him. "I think I more than got my just desserts." Sam actually has nothing to say to that and Bela offers him a smug smile. "Also, I actually am up to date on current events, though we don't exactly get the news down there…" She tilts her head. "Well except for FOX." Oliver snorts and Bela turns her attention to him. "And who exactly are you?" She smiles and looks him up and down. Oliver frowns, he really doesn't like it, because it's Chloe but at the same time it's so not Chloe. "Come to think of it, who exactly am I?" Bela looks down and studies Chloe's body. "I'm awfully short aren't I?'

"OK, let's get on with this." Dean growls as Bela runs her hands experimentally up and down Chloe's body. "The Solomon Prophecy, what do you know?"

"That it's a lame name for a prophecy." Bela sits back down in the chair and spins it around. Dean leans forward and grabs the back of the seat, stopping her momentum and turning her to face him. "Especially one about the apocalypse. You think they could have come up with something scarier like the _Prophecy of Doom_, or possibly more apt, like _This is the Way the World Ends_."

"We know you had it at one point in time." Bela nods noncommittally. "Do you still have it?"

"Think I left it in my other pants." Bela tilts her head. "You want me to pop back down to hell and pick it up."

"Did you sell it?" Dean asks and Bela cuts her eyes to the other people in the room. "Oh come on, I doubt any of them care about your nefarious pre-death dealings."

"They don't but my clients will." Bela laughs. "Most of my more…delicate deals carry a secrecy clause that does not break even in the event of my death. I cannot reveal the details of any of my deals to any other living soul."

"Does this particular deal carry that clause?" Dean sighs as Bela nods. "How were you planning on getting around that?"

"That's where you come in." Bela smiles at her own genius. "I can't tell them to whom I sold the prophecy but I can tell you."

"And what makes him so special?" Oliver asks.

"He's dead," Bela says. "Well not anymore obviously but he was dead, so now he's technically undead, either way he doesn't count as living."

"And that's a thought that's bound to keep me warm at night." Dean rubs a hand over his face. He turns to the others and nods to the door. They all leave the room and Dean sits down in his chair. "Alright, who'd you sell it to?"

"Now Dean we've got…" She looks down at her watch. "Seven more minutes."

"Of course." Dean leans back. "How's it been?" He turns his head to look at her and they both laugh. "Stupid question, huh?"

"Little bit." Bela wipes her eye.

"Did you read it?" Dean asks her suddenly serious. "The prophecy?"

Bela snorts. "No one's read it, not in over two and half thousand years."

"You weren't tempted?" Dean leans forward. "You had the box; you had the blueprint for the end of the world. You can't tell me you weren't even a little bit tempted."

"Oh I was tempted." Bela smiles. "That kind of knowledge, right at my fingertips? I'd kill for it…well long as you promise not to tell anyone, I actually did kill for it." She laughs but this time Dean doesn't join in. "I couldn't get the box open, tried for two years, called in all sorts of favors, used hoodoo, voodoo, black magic, nothing worked so I gave up, sold it as is. Made enough to buy a villa in Spain."

"So you don't know what it says?" Dean asks casually, a little too casually and Bela gets suspicious.

"Why do you want to know what it says?" Bela asks him. "You never struck me as the type to worry about something like prophecies or destiny." She squints at him, studying him and he can't help but squirm a bit. "You don't care, not about the prophecy but about…" Bela smiles pleased with herself and looks down at Chloe's body. "She cares." Bela finally understands. "And you care about her."

"This is not a discussion I'm having with you." Dean gets up and walks around the table.

"Oh Dean." Bela laughs pityingly at him. "She's the one then. The one the prophecy is about."

"That's what they tell me." Dean nods.

"Oh she's so much more than that," Bela says and Dean turns around intrigued. "And you have no idea. No idea who she really is or what she's supposed to do." Bela shakes her head. "I wonder if she does." Bela closes her eyes rifling through Chloe's thoughts. "Oh she is a naughty girl, keeping such a big bad secret from you."

Dean's jaw clenches and he swallows hard. "If she's keeping something from me, she's doing it for a good reason."

"Oh it's a good reason alright." Bela laughs. "I'm almost tempted to tell you myself but I think, I think it's better if you find out on your own."

Dean is really tired of all this. "A minute thirty," he says looking at his watch. "You want to fulfill your part of the bargain now?"

Bela stares at him for a second then grabs a pen off the table. She takes Dean's hand and flips his palm up. Slowly she writes something on it before dropping the pen back to the table and smiling. "That's the guy I sold it to, whether he still has it or not, I have no clue. I've been a bit out of the loop lately."

"Thanks." Dean starts to step back and she tightens her hold on his wrist.

"One more thing, before I go back?" Dean hesitates and she sighs. "I'm going back there for all eternity, give me five more seconds." Her tone is so earnest and her face, Chloe's face, is so desperate that Dean agrees.

"Five seconds," he tells her.

She smiles up at him, brings a hand to his cheek and leans up on her tiptoes to kiss him, softly. When he doesn't reciprocate she presses harder, sliding her tongue against his lips, urging him to open his mouth for her. To her surprise he does, he pushes his fingers into her hair and pulls her closer. She smiles against his lips, chuckling a bit and that brings him back to reality and he shoves her away. She licks her lips and smiles. "I always wanted to do that while I was alive, never got the chance," she says and Dean is glaring at her, his breathing heavy. "I'd tell you to be careful but…considering I don't think it was me you were kissing back there, that warning probably comes a bit too late."

Dean softens slightly. "Bela, if there was anything I could do…"

"I know." She smiles at him. "So noble. I still have it you know." Dean frowns at her not following. "The villa in Spain. It was under a different name, Mina Harker, so she technically stills own it. If you ever wanted to visit Europe, you're more than welcome to use it. Spare keys in planter by the fountain, but then you never were one for using keys."

"Thanks, I'll…thanks." Dean shakes his head, unable to reconcile this Bela with the Bela he knows. She winks at him one last time and then Chloe's body goes limp and collapses against the table.

"Chloe?" Dean asks, rushing forward to support her, to keep her upright.

"Yeah, I'm here. I'm fine." She slowly regains her footing. It takes her a minute to realize that Dean's still holding onto her and even after they understand the compromising position they find themselves in Dean doesn't let go. She trails her hand down his shoulder and grabs his wrist, flipping his hand palm side up. "She told you?"

"Yeah." Dean coughs and looks down at his hand.

"Oracle, run a search on a Benjamin Parker," Chloe calls out. She doesn't drop Dean's hand, she doesn't pull away.

"Do you remember?" Dean asks her. "Could you…"

"No." Chloe shakes her head. "I was too busy trying to not see the stuff in her head…you were right."

"She told me-" Dean sighs. "She said you were keeping something from me, something about the prophecy."

"I have no idea what that's about." Chloe drops his wrist and turns away. "She must have made it up."

"She sounded convinced," Dean presses her. "More worried actually."

"Well then she's mistaken," Chloe snaps at him. "She's been in hell for over a hundred years, the things I saw in just ten minutes…I'm sure that could twist anyone's mind."

"She just didn't seem twisted." Dean shrugs. "Anymore than usual that is."

"Dean, I…" Chloe turns to him as Oracle's search finishes letting out a beep she sighs and turns back around to look at the screen. "He's in New York." Chloe reaches forward and types something quickly. "Oliver was right."

"He's a rich guy?" Dean walks up beside her, letting the previous conversation drop but vowing not to forget about it.

"Central Park West address, total net worth in the billions." Chloe nods. "Get everyone back in here. We've got some work to do."

_War,_

_Children,_

_It's just a shot away_

_It's just a shot away_

_-The Rolling Stones_


	8. Stairway to Heaven

**Stairway to Heaven**

_There's a sign on the wall_

_But she wants to be sure_

_Cause you know sometimes words have_

_Two meanings_

"Benjamin Parker." Chloe pulls up his image on the big screen. "Worth a gajillion dollars."

"That's not a real number," Oliver points out amused.

"Yeah well I'm doing this off the cuff here, so I estimated." She shoots him a strained smile.

"So who is this guy anyway?" Sam looks at the picture.

"Benjamin Parker is the grandson of Ronald Parker, who made his fortune in steel back in the good old days, when people actually earned their money."

"Hey, I earned my money," Oliver says and everyone turns to him. "Okay, my Grandfather earned _his_ money."

Chloe ignores him and goes on, "The family business has expanded since then to everything from pharmaceuticals to publishing."

"And what does he do with this money that he didn't earn?" Victor asks.

"He's living the life." Chloe brings up pictures. "Spends most of his time doing the billionaire playboy thing. Seven cars, four houses, two yachts…"

"And a partridge in a pear tree?" Dean jokes.

"Something like that." Chloe snorts.

"So where's he live?" AC asks.

"Central Park West address." Chloe pulls up a satellite image.

"The Beresford, nice." Bart whistles and everyone looks at him. "I stole something there once."

"Good." Chloe glosses over the part where he admitted to theft. "Then you know your way around." She grabs a sheet of paper, jots something down quickly then passes it to Bart. "In and out," she warns him. "This is just a scouting trip to see if he still has the box."

"I get it," Bart assures her. "In and out. Five minutes tops."

"Go." Chloe nods him off and Bart disappears. She turns her head to Oliver. "Do you know him?"

"What? You think just because I'm rich and he's rich, we're in some rich person's club where we all know each other and hang out together counting our money?" Oliver raises his eyebrows at her.

"Isn't that the basic gist of a country club?" Dean asks him amused.

"Do you know him?" Chloe asks again and Oliver nods reluctantly.

"We went to school together, but we haven't seen each other in years, save the occasional charity function," Oliver corrects her assumptions.

"With what you know about him-if he's got it, you think he'd sell?" Chloe asks.

"He's got it." Bart flies back into the room and slaps the camera in Chloe's hands. She immediately plugs it in and starts uploading the shots. "He's got his own private museum." Bart scoffs. "All of his things are in little display cases with their very own informational plaques and everything."

"Classy." Dean shakes his head.

Bart snorts and punches a few keys on the keyboard, pulling up the pictures and enlarging one particular one. "That's it?" Chloe looks closely at the plain metal box on the screen. "Doesn't look like much."

"Actually it looks like a lot." Sam gets up and studies the image more closely. "You see this?" Sam points at the picture. "There are probably five different types of metal here making up this one box. They're practically weaved together, but it's seamless." He runs his finger down the side of the box. "This type of technology in that age is unheard of. Traditional puzzle boxes didn't even show up in Japan until the 1600s, and those were made of wood, not metal. This is extraordinary."

Sam turns around to see everyone looking at him with strange expressions on their faces and blushes. "Yeah," Dean says, standing up, breaking the tension. "My brother's a huge dork. Shit like this gives him a hard on, you get used to it." He pauses and turns to Sam. "Well actually, I'm still not used to it."

"According to everyone we've talked to, this box is unopenable…" She turns to Victor. "Is that even a word?"

"Not even close." He laughs.

"Either way, no one who's had the box has been able to open it. I don't want it because it's pretty; I want what's inside of it. So if we get our hands on it, do we have a plan to open it?"

"There is no way to open it, every account I've come across says it's impossible," Sam says and it's obvious from the look on Chloe's face that she does not appreciate this answer. "But I'm working on it?" he offers and she smiles.

"Ollie?" Chloe turns back to him. "What do you think, will he sell it?"

"Something like this, something ancient and invaluable, you buy it and keep it a secret because you want it. Not because you want people to know you have it or because you want to sell it for more than you bought it," Oliver tells her.

"So it's not even worth it to approach him?" Chloe asks and Oliver shakes his head. She looks up at the pictures that Bart took and a slow smile appears on her face. "You went straight in and out?" she asks him. "Just to look for the box?"

"Maybe I took a few interior shots. Maybe I caught a glimpse of the guard's rotation chart. It's possible I may have even gotten the make and model of the security system." Bart passes a sheet of paper to Victor. "I thought you might need them." Bart shrugs.

"Might need them for what?" Dean frowns.

"What do you say?" Chloe smirks up at Oliver. "Want to resurrect Green Arrow and Sidekick? One show only."

"You know me; I'm always up for a little B&E." Oliver smirks.

"Let's do this." Chloe rubs her hands together excitedly.

**::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

_"I gotta say this place is definitely not worth the $13,000 a month in tenant fees."_ The synthesized voice of the Green Arrow floats through Oracles speakers and into the Situation Room. _"The security here is a joke."_

"Are you really complaining about a lack of security Arrow?" Chloe smirks into her coffee. "Never thought I'd hear that, especially after Budapest."

"_That was…particularly painful,"_ Oliver responds. _"I'm in. And I'm not complaining from a burglar's point of view. More like a potential tenant. There's one guy asleep at the front desk and only one more to patrol. It takes him an hour just to round the whole building. And he's young, still got his puberty pimples. I bet he doesn't even carry a gun." _

Chloe snorts. "When were you ever a potential tenant for a place like the Beresford?"

_"A few years ago,"_ he answers. _"When I expanded. It was either New York or Metropolis and I chose Metropolis. But when I was thinking about New York, I looked at a few places to live, this was one of them."_ Chloe snorts again. _"What?"_

"Nothing it's just…you are so not Beresford material," she tells him, pulling up the live feed from the camera in his glasses.

_"And what exactly does that mean?"_ Oliver asks.

"The Beresford is a place where rich people live," Chloe tells him, comparing his visual to the blue prints she'd dug up from the City Planning Commission.

_"I am rich people,"_ he points out to her.

"No, I mean real rich people. Proper rich people," Chloe explains and she smiles. It's almost as if she can feel Oliver rolling his eyes. "You know rich people who like everyone else to know just how rich they are. Who flaunt their wealth and buy an apartment because of its address, not for something like say because he thought it would be cool to live in a building with a giant clock," she continues.

_"It was cool to live in a building with a giant clock_,_"_ he interrupts her.

"Be that as it may, you wouldn't see Bill Gates living in a place like that, or Steve Jobs. Real rich people have hundred million dollar homes, or hundred million dollar penthouse apartments on Central Park West," Chloe points out

"Guys, seriously," Victor butts in from his position next to Chloe where he's typing furiously to disarm Parker's alarm system. This is an argument that Chloe and Oliver used to have a lot in the good old days, and while he enjoys seeing them back to their old selves, teasing and snarking, he knows this could go on a while.

_"I don't need a 32-million dollar penthouse apartment on Central Park West_,_"_ Oliver shoots back at her.

"It's not about need." Chloe rolls her eyes. "It's about buying the most expensive thing because you can."

_"I don't even live in New York_,_" _he reminds her.

"Semantics." Chloe brushes him off. "It's a status thing."

"The alarm is disabled if anyone cares." Victor pipes up and Chloe shoots him a soft smile.

_"Going in_,_"_ Oliver tells them as he slips into Parker's apartment. The place is full of useless things—wall-sized paintings, sculptures, urns, gem encrusted eggs and the latest in high-end electronics.

"See, now this guy, he knows how to be rich." Chloe laughs studying the video feed. "You think he even knows how to work that stereo system?"

_"Probably not."_ Oliver snorts. "_It's not even hooked up. So let me get this straight, Parker is a better rich person than me because he buys top of the line stereo equipment that he doesn't even hook up?"_

"Not a better rich person," Chloe corrects him. "Better at being a rich person. He probably dropped over a hundred grand on that system and he'll toss it in two months when something better comes along."

_"You're saying I need to spend more money on frivolous, overpriced things just because I can?" _

"Exactly." Chloe nods.

_"So what do you suggest?"_ He humors her.

"You could buy your long suffering partner in crime and the woman who's pretty much made sure your life has run smoothly the past few years a-" she offers.

_"You're not getting a pony_,_"_ Oliver deadpans as he makes his way to the room where Bart said the box was.

Chloe nods, holding in her laughter. "Oh I know you could buy a submarine. Who besides a government really needs a submarine? That's like the ultimate rich guy purchase. A submarine or an island. Rich people love buying Islands."

_"How about a box that may or may not contain an ancient prophecy about the end of the world?"_ Oliver asks stopping in front of a display case.

"Sure, if you want to go that route." Chloe shrugs. "Or you know, since you're already there you could just steal it."

_"That sounds much easier."_ Oliver laughs.

"Cyborg has the code; it will disable both the motion and weight sensors so you're good to go." Chloe leans back in her chair.

"Alpha, Bravo, eight, Victor, four, one, Sierra, Whiskey." Victor relays the code to Oliver who punches it into the keypad.

They both watch as Oliver cuts a hole in the glass case surrounding the box. He reaches in and grabs it. With the words 'piece of cake' on the tip of his tongue, a deafening alarm goes off. Chloe tears the ear piece out of her ear and sees Victor doing the same as Oliver winces and ducks from the onslaught of the shrill noise.

_"I thought you said it would disable all the sensors_,_"_ Oliver yells as he clutches the box and looks around the room, trying to find an exit.

"It did," Chloe says. "I don't understand what happened."

_"If I may_,_"_ Oracle clears her throat. _"You forgot about the backup redundancy." _

"The backup redundancy?" Victor and Chloe turn to each other confused.

_"Yes, the system's set up so that you have to enter the code twice within thirty seconds of each other or they turn themselves back on_,_"_ Oracle informs them_. "Which you would have known, if you had bothered to ask."_

Chloe smirks. "Now where's the fun in that? You know the rules Oracle."

_"Do not interfere in ongoing Ops. I never understood that rule." _

"Well when you help out, it feels like cheating," Chloe explains. "Besides, ever since I built you this is basically the only thing I get to do anymore, you've taken over running everything else."

_"And it all runs much more smoothly that way_," Oracle points out.

Chloe ignores her and turns to Victor. "Cyborg can you at least shut off the alarm?" she asks typing rapidly, hacking into the building's security cameras.

"I'm working on it…now." Victor hits enter and they all relax as the noise stops.

_"How about working on finding me an exit_,_"_ Oliver hisses at them.

"Okay, so the good news is…" Chloe looks up at the screen and squints. "The security is a lot better than you thought. You've got what looks like about half of the NYPD heading your way and they may or may not have a SWAT team with them."

_"How is that good news?"_ Oliver snaps at her.

"Well, not good news for you obviously." Chloe rolls her eyes. "But good news for the tenants I suppose. You're gonna want to head for the roof."

_"Really?"_ Oliver asks sarcastically. _"Cause I was thinking about going down to the lobby and seeing how that worked out for me."_

"There is no need to be snotty," Chloe warns him. "I've disabled the elevators so they're going to have to take the stairs, you've got a few minutes. Take a breath."

_"You can't see me but I'm glaring at you right now. Fine, once I'm up, where do I go?"_ Oliver asks her calmly.

"Over," Chloe explains. "If you can get to the East tower, there's a service elevator that will put you out on West 82nd Street and from there you can lose them in the park."

"_Alright_,_"_ Oliver says panting as he runs across the roof of the building. "_Tell Clark to meet me at the carousel in Central Park in five minutes." _

"You got it." Chloe nods at Victor and he gets up and goes in search of Clark as Chloe stands up and shuts everything down.

"So this is what you did then?" Dean steps into the room slowly. He'd been watching the whole thing from the doorway, and he has to say he's impressed. "Before all hell broke loose."

"Yeah." Chloe smiles and turns around, leaning against the desk. "This is what I did." She takes a deep breath. "It's just like riding a bike I suppose," Chloe says and motions to her monitors. "I guess Watchtower was never officially offline but it felt like it was for a while there."

"I just never realized how much you had to give up for this." Dean leans against the edge of the table in front of her. "I mean this has always been my life but you…" He reaches forward and picks up the ear piece, twirling it in his fingers.

"I traded one fight for another." Chloe stills his movement, pulling the earpiece from him and shrugging. "That's all."

"You traded one life for another," Dean argues. "One partner for another." He looks at her briefly before ducking his head. "Do you ever regret it?"

Chloe thinks for a second, not that she really has to. "My house was blown up. For all intents and purposes Chloe Sullivan is officially dead. I am being hunted by angels and demons so that I can-" She catches herself. "So that I can heal God, whatever that means, and there is a very real possibility that the world will end in the next year. Do I regret it?" She laughs.

"Stupid question?" Dean rubs the back of his head.

"No." Chloe shakes her head. "Actually it's not." She takes a deep breath. "I don't regret it. Not that it was the best of circumstances but if none of those things ever happened, I wouldn't have met Sam or Bobby or Cass."

"Or me." Dean once again offers her those killer dimples.

"Or you." Chloe laughs, nodding.

"Okay, I know I'm like all kinds of awesome, but there is no way meeting us makes up for the hell you've been through, all the hell your likely to go through before this is over." Dean raises his eyebrows at her.

"It's not just that." Chloe sighs. "I loved the work I did with Oliver, it was rewarding. We helped people, we saved lives but somewhere along the way it stopped being enough. We shut down 33.1, there was no more Lex, for the moment the Kandorians were being productive members of society and not plotting the downfall of the human race and I think I just lost the mission. OK, I'm going to tell you something because I think you of all people can understand." Chloe looks around the room, pulls herself up onto the desktop and crosses her legs. "I was always good at hacking; it just sort of came naturally. Victor always looks at me funny when I say this but it's like I can feel my way around a computer."

Dean narrows his eyes. "I'm not sure why you thought I would understand this."

Chloe smiles. "No matter how easy it was, every time I broke a coded algorithm, every time I found a back door into some supposedly secure government website, every time I hacked someone e-mail, I got this little thrill." Dean nods. "But they could never compare, could never even come close to the thrill I felt when you took me on my first hunt."

Dean smiles at the gleam in her eyes.

"It was definitely not a little thrill, it was a huge thrill. My fingertips tingled and my stomach dropped and my heart speed up so fast I thought it would fly right out of my chest…" Dean laughs and she opens her eyes and smiles, not realizing that she even closed them. "I never felt anything like that before. It felt right, it felt like…" She looks up at a loss of how to explain it any better.

Dean pushes himself off of the table and takes two steps until he's standing in front of Chloe, studying her. "Like your first kiss."

"Yeah," Chloe whispers.

"It's like the lead up where your palms are all itchy and you can't keep a thought in your head for more than a second before it's gone and there's so much nervous energy bouncing around inside of you, you think you might just come out of your own skin."

"Uh huh." Chloe nods slightly, her eyes glued on Dean's.

"And you panic, because suddenly you've built it up in your head so much there's no way it could possibly live up to your expectations. Then your lips touch, just barely but even the slightest ghost of contact is so much more than you ever imagined and your heart stops beating all together for just a second and you can't catch your breath."

"Exactly." Chloe smiles up at him, her eyes briefly darting to his lips.

Dean nods. "You're right. I understand what you mean. Even after everything I've been through I still feel that way, still get that thrill, every time."

"So it doesn't go away then?" Chloe seems excited by this prospect.

"It hasn't in the twenty-some odd years I've been doing it." He smirks.

"That's…" Chloe tilts her head back. "Good to know."

"Is it?" Dean asks her.

Before she can say anything Jo pops her head in the door. "Clark's back with Oliver and the box."

"Thanks. Let them know we're in here." Chloe slides herself off the desk top and Dean steps back as Oliver walks in the cabin, holding something no bigger than a cigar box in his hands. "That it?"

"This is it." Oliver slides it to the middle of the table. "I got chased through Central Park for this thing so it better be good."

"Sorry about that." Chloe winces and walks around the table studying the box. There's no lid, no opening, no slot, no seam even. "Did you try…"

"Opening it?" Oliver nods. "No luck."

Chloe looks to Clark hopefully. "I couldn't even dent the thing," he says with a shake of his head.

"Sam?" She looks around and frowns when he's nowhere in sight. "Where's Sam?'

"Coming," he calls from outside, taking the steps two at a time to get in the room. "Uh, I've been digging a little deeper." He drops an armload of books and papers on the table. "The legend you heard wasn't exactly right." He nods to Chloe. "It was said Solomon had the box made, then put the prophecy in it."

"He didn't?" Dean asks.

"He had the box built around the prophecy." Sam sighs and sinks into a chair. "There is no way to open it, it doesn't open."

"So how do we get the prophecy out?" Chloe sighs in frustration.

"There is a ritual." Sam digs through the papers searching for something. "We think it might dissolve the…create an opening…or…" He looks up at her hopelessly and deflates a bit. "We're pretty sure it'll do something."

"So that's a solid plan then." Chloe smiles and Sam laughs. "Alright, what you're telling me is that we just stole a 12-million dollar box that we can't open." Chloe reaches forward and grabs it, pulling it toward her. As soon as her fingers touch the metal, the top of the box, with no visible hinges or seams, lifts slightly up and Chloe drops it back on the table.

"Except you just opened it." Sam stands up and walks over to her. "What did you do?"

"Nothing." Chloe shakes her head. "I just…touched it." She looks up at Sam confused.

"Maybe it was on some sort of magical time release?" Sam offers.

"Whatever, it opened," Dean points out.

Chloe takes a deep breath and lifts the lid a little more. She looks around the room at all the expectant faces and suddenly isn't sure. "You do realize that it's not like we're going to be able to read it right away. It's in Ancient Aramaic. I don't read Ancient Aramaic, do you?"

"I do." Castiel frowns at her.

"I dabble," Sam offers.

"Oh." Chloe nods numbly. "Okay then." She reaches her hand in and immediately pulls it back out. "I can't do it," Chloe admits.

"What?" Lois asks her confused. "You spent almost a year searching for this thing and now that we have it you can't read it?"

"Well, obviously, I have not thought this through." She shoves herself away from the table and starts pacing. "I mean up until this point it's all been conjecture, all this stuff about me healing God. Right now it's just a story, told to me by the devil himself, and if he's not the least reliable source on the planet, I don't know who is."

"Cuz, slow down a sec, you're not really making any sense," Lois tells her.

"Right now he could be wrong. I could have absolutely nothing to do with the end of the world. At this moment in time my future is wide open, anything is possible. But when we see the prophecy, if it says what he says it says then it becomes real, it becomes…fate. And my future is set," Chloe says. "I just…I guess, I need a minute, one more minute of _'possible'_."

"Take your time," Oliver tells her.

"I'm just going to…" Chloe motions to the door of her bedroom and then slips inside. She takes a deep breath and sits down on the bed. She doesn't bother to turn on the light, she just wants the quiet. She lets herself fall back against the mattress, crawls to the head of the bed, pulls the covers up over herself and closes her eyes.

_"You're hiding." Jimmy pulls the covers off of her face, forces her to look at him. _

_"I'm not_,_" Chloe protests._

"You're hiding in your room, under your covers, like a scared little girl who's convinced there are monsters in the closet." Jimmy laughs at her.

_"Well sometimes there _are_ monsters in the closet_,_" Chloe reminds him. She sits up and brushes the hair out of her face. _

_"Yeah but you don't hide from them, you fling open the doors, you drag them out into the light, and you chase them off_,_" Jimmy tells her. _

_"This is different." Chloe shakes her head. "This is…epic. People keep throwing around words like fate and destiny and it's just, it's too much." She climbs off the bed and walks over to the dresser, her old dresser in her old bedroom. _

_Chloe picks up a picture frame. There's a photo in it of her and Lois at the Smallville County Fair standing in front of the hay bale maze, arms over each other's shoulder, manic grins on their faces. Chloe remembers that five minutes before that picture was taken they'd scarfed down four huge bags of cotton candy. Chloe remembers that five minutes after that picture was taken they'd both thrown up the cotton candy and the seven hot dogs they had earlier that day in a failed attempt at winning the competitive eating event. Chloe also remembers that twelve hours after that picture was taken she was in Morocco, helping Oliver and her team break into a secret underground test facility._

_"Your life is epic, Chloe. You weren't built for normal. You created your first wall of weird when you were thirteen years old. You sought out the strange and the unexplainable and you made it your mission to explain it. I don't know if I believe in destiny or fate but I do believe that everything in your life has led you to this moment. And it didn't lead you here so that you could run away. Chloe Sullivan doesn't run away. You didn't run when Lionel was trying to kill you, you didn't run when Lex was trying to kill you. Why are you running now?" _

_"Because if they read it, they'll know." Chloe finally voices what's really bothering her. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe opens her eyes as the covers are pulled down off her face. "Hey," she whispers to Dean.

"Hey." He smiles at her. "I know you think that the rest of your life is in that box out there but see I don't believe that."

"You don't?" Chloe sits up slowly.

"No, I don't. I don't think someone who lived thousands of years ago has the right to dictate my life in the here and now. They say that I'm going to be Michael's vessel. That I _have_ to be Michael's vessel. But I have a choice in the matter and I chose no and I'll keep choosing no until my last dying breath and then I'll say it one more time just to make sure they get the message," Dean tells her.

"Nice sentiment." Chloe smiles.

"Yeah well." Dean rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "Come on, let's get this over with. Ellen made something that smells vaguely like lasagna and I'm freakin' starving."

Chloe laughs and allows Dean to pull her out of the bed and to the door. "Dean, no matter what it says you've got my back right?"

"Always," Dean promises.

"OK, let's get this over with then." She walks back into the room and over to the box. It seems ridiculous now, that she could be so scared of a piece of paper. "Lois, you remember that day we went to the Smallville fair and we threw up all over Chief Weston's prize winning pumpkins?"

Lois smiles. "That was a good day." She nods. "I was two dogs away from winning that hot dog eating competition. Why?"

"No reason." Chloe shrugs. She opens the lid of the box all the way and reaches her hand in, to find nothing. "You've got to be kidding me." Chloe scoffs.

"What?" Lois asks. Chloe picks up the box and flips it over, a pile of ashes spills onto the table. "What is that?"

"That Lois is what happens to parchment after thousands of years," Chloe scoffs. "So they made the box impenetrable but not climate controlled."

The entire room is silent, staring at the pile of dust that used to be the Solomon Prophecy. The door to the cabin swings open and a gust of wind blows into the room, gathering up the dust and scattering it around the room. No one is quick enough to prevent its immediate dispersal. "Oops." Jo looks down at the table. "Was that anything important?"

"Not anymore." Chloe shakes her head. "What can I do for you?"

"Dinner's ready," Jo says slowly.

"Thanks." Chloe sighs. "I'm suddenly starving."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"So that sucks." Lois is the first to break the strange silence. They're sitting around a table in the mess hall, picking at the thing that smells vaguely like lasagna but actually appears to be some sort of rice and beans dish.

"I know." Dean pushes his plate away. "I was really in the mood for lasagna."

Lois shoots him a glare. "I meant about the prophecy. We're sure that was really it? There's not another copy somewhere, one of the other seven?"

"I am sure," Castiel says. "When the first seals began to break, I searched every corner of this planet for them. They are all gone."

Lois sighs and lays her chin on her hands. "I wish we had our very own prophet. Then he could just write another one and we could see what it really says." Lois glances up to see Castiel, Dean and Sam giving her a strange look. "What did I say?"

"I can't believe we didn't think of this sooner," Sam groans.

"Think of what sooner?" Chloe asks.

"Chuck." Dean shakes his head.

"And what's a Chuck?" Oliver asks them.

"He's our very own Prophet."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Chloe…" Dean tries again. She's been ignoring him since dinner. They all retreated back to the situation room without finishing their lasagna scented beans and rice, eager to get a hold of Chuck. Only there was no getting a hold of Chuck. He wasn't answering his cell phone. Chloe dispatched Bart to his house and between the stale scent of the air and the mail piled up in his mailbox, they got the impression that he hadn't been there for a while. They even called his editor who eventually related to them that she hadn't heard from Chuck in months.

"Still not talking to you." She shakes her head as she watches Sam pace and talk on the phone. He'd very reluctantly agreed to call Chuck's girlfriend but only when they had exhausted all other options. Chloe had done a bit of research on the guy and she still couldn't decide what was more unbelievable. That this guy was a prophet, that he was a prophet named Chuck, or that he was a prophet named Chuck who had a girlfriend.

"It's a mistake anyone could make," Dean offers her.

"It's really not." Chloe shakes her head. "Forgetting to turn off the oven or to stick a check in the mail, even forgetting to pick your kid up from school one time, those are mistakes anyone could make. Forgetting you have your very own prophet when faced with the imminent possibility of the end of the world is apparently only a mistake that Dean Winchester can make."

"Sam forgot too," He reminds her. "How come you're still talking to him?"

"Because Sammy doesn't count." Chloe brushes him off.

"That's hardly fair." Dean snorts. "What kind of system is that?"

"The kind where I'm still not talking to you." She turns around and glares at him. Lois resists the urge to snort but Dean still offers her a glare simply for the amused look on her face.

"So this just keeps getting better and better." Sam slides the phone in his pocket and looks between Chloe and Dean. "Becky says that Chuck is with the angels."

"Come again?" Dean leans forward.

"Oh yeah. She says that about six months ago, they came and got him and took him away to what they told her was a secure location."

"Secure location my ass." Dean snorts.

"Where?" Chloe ignores Dean.

"Becky doesn't know. She says they won't tell her for security reasons," Sam explains and Chloe's face starts to fall.

"They could be anywhere." Victor sighs.

"That place you guys held me?" Dean offers and Castiel shakes his head.

"Impossible." He looks at them. "That place technically existed in an area of heaven. They can no longer get into heaven."

"How do you know that?" Lois asks him.

"Because I can no longer get into heaven," he explains and everyone's attention is now on the angel. "Those who have not chosen to fight with Zachariah and Raphael have decided to remain neutral. They don't want to be seen as offering any side an unfair advantage, so until such a time as this conflict is resolved, they are not allowing any of us in."

"You're telling me Heaven is closed?" Dean asks.

"In a manner of speaking." Castiel nods.

"Then they're on earth," Chloe says thinking out loud. "And if they're on earth, we can find them."

"Becky did say Chuck e-mails her every day," Sam tells her.

Chloe smirks. "What's her e-mail address?"

Sam laughs as Chloe settles herself in front of Oracle. Before she can begin typing the computer speaks up. "I'm already running a search on the IP address; I should have a location for you in 34.8 seconds." The eight screens that take up the entire wall which usually contain eight different images merge into one large screen showing a satellite view of the World. The image gradually zooms into the United States, then the Southwest, the Nevada, and finally it settles.

"Vegas?" Dean smirks shaking his head.

"Clever." Chloe snorts. "That's the last place I'd expect to find an angel, much less a large group of them."

"So what do we do?" Oliver asks. "I mean the way Sam was talking; it doesn't seem as if he's in an immediate danger. Could we just leave him there?"

"No," Castiel says. "It is imperative that the angels do not have access to the Prophet."

"So we have to rescue him?" Clark asks. "I mean we're talking about angels. Aren't those guys pretty indestructible?"

"Very nearly," Castiel confirms this, a frown on his face. "But being cut off from heaven their powers, like mine, will be limited. I've noticed they seem to be decreasing slightly every day." Chloe shoots him a glare, he hasn't said anything like that to her and she's not sure how she feels about him keeping something so important to himself. As if sensing this Castiel continues, "But make no mistake, even depleted, our powers are far greater than you can handle."

"So how do we fight them?" Victor swallows hard.

"We don't." Dean shakes his head. "We can't."

"Not to sound naïve or anything but isn't this sort of what we've been training for? The whole reason we're here, the whole reason we're doing this?" Dinah points out.

"Maybe. But we're not ready yet, none of us." Dean shakes his head. "We'll get slaughtered before we can step through the front door."

"Not if we have backup." Chloe smiles mischievously, speaking up for the first time.

"What back up do you take to a fight with angels?" Oliver scoffs and looks around the room, Chloe just beams with a look that Dean has come to define as trouble.

"Demons," Chloe says simply. Before the word has even fully left her mouth the room erupts into a cacophony of yelling, protesting, and even a bark of surprised laughter.

"You are absolutely out of your mind aren't you?" Dean asks.

"Hey, I got the idea from Cass." Chloe turns to the angel and everyone follows suit.

"What do you mean?" Oliver asks her carefully.

"Come on, do you really think that after all your hard work, everything you guys did to keep me safe in Metropolis the demons and the angels found me on the same day?" Chloe scoffs. "He told the angels where to find me. Told them who I was and where I was."

Oliver and Dean both stand at this announcement and take a menacing step toward the angel. "You ratted her out?" Even Bart is incredulous.

"You don't understand," Castiel argues, trying to defend himself while at the same time admitting to the transgression.

"Damn right I don't understand. Your job was to protect her, to keep her hidden from them, not to offer her up on a silver platter," Oliver growls.

"I _was_ protecting her," Castiel snaps at him.

"He was," Chloe says softly, placing a hand on Oliver's arm, subtly telling him to back off. "The demons found me, there was no escaping that. They found me and they were coming after me and there was nothing you could do to stop it. Do you think you guys would have had even the slightest chance against an army of demons?" Oliver shakes his head. "Cass knew that, he knew that there were too many, that we were outnumbered and so he evened the playing field. Fought fire with fire."

A light seems to switch on in Dean's head. "Tell the angels, they show up to the party and the angels and demons have to fight each other before they can go after you." Dean nods.

"Giving you guys enough time and a big enough distraction to get me out of there before they even realize I'm gone," Chloe finishes.

"It was a good plan," Castiel defends himself.

"And it worked," Chloe reminds them. "It worked then and it'll work again."

"How can you be so sure?" AC asks her. "How do you know they'll even go along with it?"

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Chloe quotes. "Give them a chance at a calculated strike against the angels? They'll go along with it."

"It's too risky." Dean shakes his head. "Say they do agree, what's to stop them going after you when they're done with the angels? Getting Chuck away from the angels is important but not at the risk of losing you to the demons."

"You won't."

"You can't guarantee that," Dean scoffs at her.

"I can," Chloe argues with him desperately. "The demons don't want me dead. They need me alive. I'd be more worried about the angels in this scenario if anything."

"Mara said that too," Dean offers Chloe a calculating look. "That the demons don't want you dead. Why is that?"

Chloe stands up straighter and stares him down. "I don't know."

_Lie,_ Dean thinks but he bites his tongue. There is something going on here, under the surface, something more than just rescuing Chuck, trying to get the Prophecy. He knows that it has something to do with Chloe and he knows that she's keeping something from him. He's noticing it in her fighting, like she's holding something back, trying to keep something down. More and more lately he's noticing it in her words and actions. Everything she says seems guarded. Then there are the lies, most of them are small, really only half truths and tiny omissions but every now and then she lets a big, blatant, and straight to his face lie free and Dean feels a sharp pang that she doesn't trust him enough with whatever it is.

"It's not up for discussion," Chloe says sternly. "I know it's risky but it's a risk I have to take." She looks around the room. "That doesn't mean you have to. This is going to be a volunteer mission. You don't like the plan, you don't have to go." She gets up and walks out of the room.

"Dean?" Sam asks, studying the look on Dean's face.

"If she says she can pull it off, she can pull it off." Dean shrugs. "She leads I follow remember. Like a good little soldier."

"You can't mean that," Sam scoffs at his older brother.

It's obviously important to her. More important than anything trivial like self preservation. The problem Dean sees with the plan is that there really isn't a problem with the plan. As long as everything that Chloe's saying is true and the demons don't surprise them with a double cross and they get really really lucky, it could actually work. "It's a good plan."

"It's a horrible plan," Oliver pipes up. "It's the worst plan in the history of people planning things. We are talking about pitting angels against demons in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip."

"Bet we could sell tickets," Bart mumbles and Dinah laughs. Most of them grumble about the plan even after they all volunteer to go then head out into the camp to spread the word.

"Cass," Chloe calls out and the angel hangs back. "I don't keep you around because you're an angel or because of your powers. I keep you around because I trust you, because I value your opinion. I wouldn't care if you woke up tomorrow and you were completely human. I keep you around because of who you are, not what you can do."

"Yes, ma'am." Castiel allows himself a small smile.

"That being said. You keep something like that from me again; you'll wish you were human, because at least as a human you'd have the sweet prospect of death to look forward to."

"Yes, ma'am." Castiel swallows thickly and Chloe smiles.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

They put the word out the next day that Chloe wants to arrange a meeting with Barbas. Two days later Chloe goes into town to check her PO Box. She stops at the local Starbucks to grab a cup of coffee and her Barista turns to her and smiles. "Do you like pie?"

"I'm sorry?" Chloe takes her change confused.

"Pie?" the woman asks.

"I'm not averse to it." Chloe frowns.

"There's this little diner, a hole in the wall place really, in a sweet little town called Pleasant up in Ohio." She fills Chloe's cup. "Best pie on the planet."

"Okay," Chloe says cautiously.

"You should stop in sometime. Check it out." The Barista hands Chloe the cup and her eyes briefly flash black. "Thursday, 9 a.m."

"Bit early for pie," Chloe says glancing around the shop for any more demons in disguise.

"It's best in the mornings." She shrugs.

"Thursday 9 a.m. then." Chloe nods but the woman won't let go of her coffee cup so Chloe leans closer.

"We can trust you'll leave your sword at home?" She raises her eyebrows. Chloe smiles. After Alia began training her, they'd found her a sword of her very own. Once Lucas worked his magic on it, it sort of became Chloe's trademark. She never went on a hunt without it.

"You want me to meet with Barbas unarmed?" Chloe snorts.

"It's just pie," the woman offers. "Take it or leave it."

"Fine." Chloe swallows.

"Excellent. I'll tell him to expect you." She releases the cup but Chloe grabs her wrist keeping her in place, squeezing it painfully until she can feel the bones rubbing together.

"I'm going to come back up here tomorrow and…" Chloe glances down briefly at the name tag on the woman's apron. "Jenny had better be footloose and demon-free."

"Please, like I'm going to spend another second in this place." The woman rolls her eyes and Chloe lets go, walking out.

She replays the meeting over and over in her mind on the way back to the camp and when she fills everyone else in on what happened Dean is the first to vocalize what Chloe's been thinking. "They know where we are?" He raises his eyebrows. "At least enough to know where you might possibly get a cup of coffee?"

"Apparently." Chloe nods curtly.

"So-what does that mean?" Lois looks panicked and Chloe almost didn't tell them because she was worried about this exact reaction. "Do we have to leave?"

"No." Chloe shakes her head emphatically. "We're not going anywhere. So they know where we are, they've probably known for a while now. But they haven't done anything so we aren't going to do anything. We certainly aren't going to let them run us out of our home," Chloe tells them, because inexplicably this has become home, for all of them. Lois smiles and nods.

"So we'll leave Wednesday, get there early, scout the place out?" Dean stands up and looks at Chloe.

"No." She shakes her head at him. "You're not coming."

"Like hell." Dean snorts.

"They may not want me dead but they'll kill you in a heartbeat," she tells him leaving no room for discussion.

"Fine, who then?" Dean asks.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe maneuvers around a pile of bricks as she makes her way to the back of the camp to check on a glitch in one of the border cameras. She could have sent Victor but she wants to do it herself, has to get away from the camp for a while, away from the disapproving glare that seems to be the only facial expression Dean can manage these days. Jo trails behind her, clipboard in hand, and they barely make it to the tree-line before being ambushed by one very determined kid. "No absolutely not, why are we still talking about this?" Chloe looks over her shoulder at Lucas.

"Because you're not being fair," Lucas says his tone exasperated.

"I don't have to be fair," Chloe reminds him. "Perks of the job."

"You won't even hear me out," Lucas argues and Chloe stops. She looks over at Jo, whom she blames for the fact that Lucas even knew where she was to chase after her and Jo smiles and shrugs. She's got a bit of a soft spot for the kid.

"Okay, fine, I'll hear you out."

"Oh." Lucas looks surprised, like he never considered this outcome. He was all ready for righteous indignation at not being heard he never imagined what would happen if she actually listened to him. He finally settles on one word,"Weapons."

"What about them?" She raises her eyebrows.

"I know you've got this whole deal with the demons thing going but there's no way you walk into the fight without weapons," Lucas says, pulling this all off the cuff. "And we've got a lot of demon killing weapons now but we still have nothing that works against the angels."

"While everything you just said is true, none of it is a compelling enough reason to allow you to come along," Chloe points out to him.

"You might need me," Lucas begs.

"Do you think that in the middle of the battle you're going to suddenly figure out a way to the kill an angel?" Chloe raises an eyebrow at him and he deflates, she crouches down next to him and sighs. "I need you here Lucas. I need you to keep working on a way to kill an angel because if anyone can figure it out, you can. But mainly, I need you here because Bobby is pissed that I'm not letting him come and I need someone here to make sure he doesn't sneak out."

Lucas rolls his eyes. "It's not fair. If I was older…"

"I'd let you come in a heartbeat but you're not," Chloe admits to him.

"Age doesn't matter to them," Lucas tells her.

"Jo, what's the rule?" Chloe asks and Jo smiles.

"No fighting until you can grow facial hair," Jo recites to him.

"Then how come Bart gets to go?" Lucas calls back and Jo erupts into laughter.

"I'm so using that one against him." Jo shakes her head.

"Tell you what?" Chloe offers. "If between now and when we leave, you either figure out how to kill angels or manage to grow a mustache, you can come along."

Lucas glares at her, but it's somehow softened. "Fine." He huffs and heads back to camp.

Chloe smiles fondly after him then resumes her walk out to the Northern border of the camp. "I didn't except so many people to want to come."

"Are you kidding?" Jo snorts. "This is a camp full of hunters and you're offering them a chance to fight against the guys who orchestrated this whole apocalypse. I'm surprised more people haven't volunteered."

"Well a lot of them don't agree with my plan to make a deal with the demons," Chloe points out. "I never asked." She turns to the younger girl. "What do you think about it?"

"Your plan?" Jo seems surprised to be asked. "I think it's good," Jo admits. "I think it's necessary. I think that people forget this is a war and in war you have to do things you wouldn't normally do to fight for what you believe in."

"Thanks." Chloe smiles.

Emboldened by being asked her opinion Jo walks faster. "I want to go," she says.

"Go?" Chloe asks her confused.

"To Vegas," Jo clarifies. "I want to go. I want to fight." Chloe stops and studies her. "I've been training since I was little. Hunting's in my blood, I'm good at it. I want to fight."

"OK." Chloe nods.

"OK?" Jo asks, unsure she heard correctly.

"OK. Maybe," Chloe amends. "You'll come with me tomorrow and I'll see how you do, then I'll decide if I think you can handle it."

"Tomorrow." Jo swallows. "When you meet with Barbas?"

"Yeah." Chloe raises her eyebrows. "Can you handle that?"

"Absolutely, Jo answers with more conviction than she feels. "I won't let you down."

It doesn't take long to realize what's causing the glitch in the camera; birds have chewed through the wires. Chloe tells Jo to make a note to send Victor out there to replace it and they head back to camp. "Pack and meet me at the Jeeps in four hours," Chloe tells Jo before walking to her cabin.

"You're taking Jo?" Dean asks from his perch on her porch. "You won't let me come or Oliver or even Sam, but you're taking Jo? To meet with a demon."

"Yeah I'm taking Jo." Chloe brushes past him and walks into the cabin. "I wanted to take Cass but he's been conspicuously absent since I announced the trip."

"I noticed." Dean follows her through the situation room and into the bedroom. "So since you can't take the super-powered angel who has pledged his life to protecting you, you decide to take the girl who makes your coffee."

"Cass makes my coffee actually." Chloe smirks at Dean before turning around. She lifts her shirt off her head in one smooth motion and tosses it to the floor. "He makes amazing coffee, perfect every time." Chloe grabs another shirt off the dresser and slips it over her head. "And you probably shouldn't let Jo hear you talk about her like that."

"Chloe, you're going into the lion's den, unarmed, which I think is stupid by the way. You need muscle," Dean tells her.

"What I need is someone who will stand behind me, keep their mouth shut, and look menacing," Chloe points out, sliding her jeans off and exchanging them for a pair of yoga pants.

"And you think Jo's more menacing than me?" Dean raises his eyebrows.

"Have you ever been on the receiving end of one of her silent treatments?" Chloe asks. She turns around to face him again, tying the string on her pants. "It's not about me, it's about Jo."

Dean pauses. "A test for her? You really think now is the time and place for that?"

"Now or never." Chloe stops on her way out the door. "You're being very…agreeable about this whole situation."

_Because I'm tired of fighting with you, because every time we do you lie and I'd rather not suffer through that voluntarily. _Dean thinks. "I've learned to choose my battles when it comes to you." Dean shrugs. "Figured you were pretty much set on this whole thing, don't want to waste the energy."

"Thanks," Chloe says and walks back outside. "I'm going to get in a quick session with Alia, you want to come?" Chloe has spent pretty much every waking moment-since the Kandorians arrived at camp-training with Alia, and Dean has spent that time watching Chloe train with her.

"Watch two woman sword fight?" Dean's eyes sparkle. "Definitely. Hey," Dean asks as they head to the gym. "Did you tell Lucas he could come to Vegas if he grew a mustache?"

"Yeah." Chloe smiles.

"Classic." Dean shakes his head in amusement.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Jo checks her watch, 9:30. "He's late," she says. She's nothing more than a bundle of nervous energy at this point. She's shaking her foot so hard it's vibrating the table. Chloe shoots her a glance and the shaking stops immediately. "What if this is a trap?" she asks quietly. "What if they only agreed to get you out of the camp, so they could ambush it?"

"Hardly a well thought out plan." Chloe snorts. "They got rid of you and me. There's still Sam, Dean, and Cass and everyone else there."

"I don't like this." Jo shakes her head. "This town is like four blocks long. They know we're strangers. They're all staring at us. For all we know they could all be possessed."

Chloe smiles and shakes her head. "Look around, they're all drinking coffee right?" Jo looks and nods. "And no one is smoking at the mouth?" Jo shakes her head. "Then we're good."

"How can you be sure?" she asks confused.

"Small town like this, all their water comes from the reservoir," Chloe says. "I went out and blessed it this morning while you were still sleeping."

"You can do that?" Jo asks astonished.

"Easy as…pie." Chloe's lips curl up into a smile as the bell above the door rings and a man walks in, a familiar man, the man Chloe remembers from the Watchtower all those months ago. He spies them immediately and walks over to their booth.

"Good morning Bethany." He flashes a grin to the waitress behind the counter. "Three slices of blueberry please for me and my friends."

"Sure thing hun." Bethany smiles and Chloe glares as he slips in the seat across from them.

"Come here often then?" Chloe asks.

"What can I say, I love a good pie." Barbas shrugs. Bethany walks over to the table and refills Chloe and Jo's coffee cups and sets a fresh cup out for Barbas.

"I'd pass on the coffee this morning." Chloe warns him. "Might be a little too steamy for you." Barbas raises his eyebrows in amusement. "In fact, do you use water in your pie crust Bethany?"

"A little." She frowns nodding.

"And what time did you start baking this morning?"

"Oh I'd say around five." She thinks for a second.

"Well I didn't get to the reservoir until around eight so you're probably safe if you want to risk it," Chloe offers and Barbas shakes his head. "But I'd definitely pass on the coffee."

"Pie is always better with an ice cold glass of milk anyway." He shrugs and Bethany walks away, eyeing them curiously as if she's trying to decipher the cryptic exchange they just had. "So." He leans against the back of the booth and stretches his arms out. "You called this meeting."

"That I did." Chloe nods then pauses as three plates of pie and one large glass of ice cold milk are placed on the table. She waits until Bethany leaves before resuming her conversation. "How would you like a chance to get back at Zachariah for that truly embarrassing ass kicking he handed you and your men back in Metropolis?"

"I'd love to." Barbas snorts. "I gave up my chance at seeing heaven a long time ago though, so I don't see that happening any time soon, seeing as how rumor has it that's where he's hiding out these days."

"See now, I heard a different rumor." Chloe smiles. "I heard that starting this war had a few unforeseen consequences. They're pretty adamant about remaining like Switzerland upstairs. So much so that apparently Saint Peter's closed the gates, no one gets in-no one gets out, not until this whole thing is over anyway." She takes a large bite of her pie.

"No one including the angels?" Barbas leans forward intrigued. "Which means they're hiding out on earth, and you know where?" Chloe nods. "And you're just going to offer me this information out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Something like that." Chloe shrugs.

"This is some sort of trap or something." He studies her intently. "I mean come on, you're a white hat. I'm sure there's no love lost between you and the pompous winged ones but handing them to my side on a silver platter, I don't buy it."

"In case you've failed to notice, it's not your side that wants me dead," Chloe reminds him. "And maybe it is a trap, but the traps not for you. You're just the bait."

"The bait for what?" Barbas asks her.

"They have something that I want, and while they're busy with you, I'll be taking it right out from under their noses," Chloe tells him.

"Interesting." Barbas nods. "See I've got no delusions that we're suddenly on the same side here, so how do I know this thing you're taking from them is something that I even want you to have. Could be a weapon of some kind."

"It's not a weapon." Chloe shakes her head. "But if you're not sure, ask your boss, I'm sure he'll be happy to let me have it. I'd even go so far as to say that he wants me to have it."

Jo turns her head to Chloe sharply at this but Chloe ignores it. "Let me think about it." Barbas shrugs.

"No." Chloe shakes her head. "This is a onetime only offer, window of opportunity five more minutes; you take it or leave it."

"How's the pie?" Bethany asks walking up to the table.

"Wonderful." Chloe smiles up at her. "Can I get a few slices to go?"

"Sure." Bethany walks back behind the counter and Chloe turns back to Barbas.

"Fine." Barbas glares at her. "Name the time and the place, I'll bring the army."

"Good," Chloe says. Bethany sets a box on the table and walks away. Chloe stands and Jo follows her. She digs in her pocket and drops a twenty on the table. "I'll text you with the location when I'm in position. Don't want you jumping the gun."

"You'll text me?" Barbas raises his eyebrows. "When did we exchange phone numbers?"

"I cloned your cell while you were eating your pie." Chloe smirks. "Not even password protected," she tsks at him. "I'll be in touch," she says and heads out the door.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"How'd it go?" Dean asks the second they step out of the Jeep back at Camp.

"Great, brought you some pie." She tosses him the box and he smiles for a second.

"Is everything set?" He follows after her and Jo and Chloe nods. "He agreed?"

"Didn't even take the whole five minutes." Chloe snorted. "You guys got everything sorted on our end?"

"Lucas and Bobby have a question about the weapons. Oliver's organizing all the volunteers and Cass is handling transport," Dean says.

"If he bothers to show up." She snorts.

"Actually…" Dean starts as Chloe pushes open the door to her cabin and Castiel is standing at the head of the table. "He showed up about an hour after you left." Dean smiles at her.

"Nice of you to join us." Chloe glares at him.

"I apologize for leaving so abruptly, I had to…I have a gift. For you," he says, hastily presenting her with a sword that he's been hiding behind his back.

"It's a sword." Chloe takes it from him slowly. "A very dirty, rusty sword."

"It has seen better days," Castiel agrees. "But it is special."

She studies it more closely. It's not a traditional sword; it looks more like a scimitar. It has a curved blade that widens as it goes out from the handle. It's only single edged but it comes to a wicked point. It is rather dirty through, as if it has been sitting in the back of a shed somewhere, forgotten.

"OK." Chloe tests it out. "It feels nice, light, but evenly balanced." She nods at him. "I like it."

"It is your sword, Chloe," he tells her earnestly.

"I have a feeling you're not saying that because you just gave it to me." Chloe squints at him.

"It has always been your sword, Chloe," Castiel says cryptically then walks away.

"That was weird." Dean raises his eyebrows.

"I had pie with a demon this morning; nothing is weird to me anymore." Jo shrugs.

"I'm going to check in with Lucas, see if he can clean it up for me." Chloe starts to walk away. "Jo." She stops and turns around. "Report to Oliver tomorrow 1700 hours tomorrow for training."

"I can go?"

"You can go." Chloe nods.

**May 19, 2010**

Chloe waited another few weeks before declaring them ready. She wanted to get in as much training time as she could. Not only for the hunters who'd volunteered for the mission but for herself as well. The sword that Castiel had given her felt lighter and more balanced than any other blades she's held, but she had to get used to the way that it handled. It was almost a completely different fighting style. She could have simply used the sword she always used but something in her was convinced that this was the sword she had to take.

"You stay glued to my six, I turn around at any point in time and you are more than a foot away from me, you will be shackled to Oracle for the remainder of your days on this earth," Chloe warns.

"Got it," Jo assures her.

"Sound off." Chloe gently taps her ear piece.

"_Alpha team in position. Three angels guarding the south entrance_,_" _Oliver answers.

"_Why does his team get to be Alpha team?"_ Dean asks annoyed.

"Dean." Chloe pinches the bridge of her nose.

"_No I want to know a specific reason." _Dean practically pouts. _"Is it just because you guys used to do this all the time, because you think he's better than me, because-"_

"I flipped a coin," Chloe admits. "I flipped a coin, he got A and you got B. Sound off." Chloe says tersely.

"_Beta team in position_,_"_ Dean grumbles. _"Three angels at the east entrance." _

"_Charlie team in position_,_"_ Dinah calls. _"Three more north entrance."_

"And we've got four at the west entrance. Okay." Chloe pulls out her phone and types a simple message, _'Vegas, MGM Grand Mansions, Gated Entrance'_.

"How long do you think-" Jo's question is cut off when Chloe nods toward the horizon. "Whoa." She swallows.

"_Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"_ Dean asks Chloe.

"If you're talking about the nude juggler on the strip no, if you're talking about the giant swirling black cloud of demons heading this way, yeah." Chloe stares at the sky.

"_There's a nude juggler on the strip?"_ Dean asks after a pause. Chloe rolls her eyes at Jo. _"Wait, male or female?"_

"_Heads up_," Oliver calls out and they all literally look up to see the black cloud split into about fifty separate smoke streams then hurtle toward the earth.

All over the city, people stop what they're doing, freeze for just a second before abandoning friends, wives, and girlfriends. They leave tables full of winnings, walk out in the middle of shows and head toward the MGM Grand. _"There goes about fifty people who are not going to remember much tomorrow_,_"_ Oliver jokes.

"_This is Vegas."_ Dinah snorts. _"There are a lot more than fifty people who won't remember much tomorrow."_

"_Good point_,_"_ Oliver muses.

"I've got what looks like a flash mob headed my way. It's either the demons or one of those improve groups and any second now they could burst into an inexplicable song and dance number. Either way, stay on your toes." Chloe looks up and down the strip both ways to see large groups of people coming straight for her. She stands up straighter and turns to see Jo following her lead. "Barbas?" she asks a tall rather attractive man walking slightly further ahead of the rest.

"It's nice isn't it?" he asks looking up and down at the body he's in. "I'm thinking of keeping him. Maybe ride him all the way back home."

"I just want to be clear on one thing. I get what I want and all bets are off," Chloe says to him. "Because I'm looking forward to killing you myself."

"Sounds good to me." Barbas nods then turns to the large iron gate next to them. "So are we scaling the wall, breaking it down?" Chloe digs in her back pocket and pulls out a card. She swipes it through a reader on the brick wall and the gate slides open. "That works too."

Chloe smirks and walks up the drive, Jo following less than a foot behind and the demon mob hot on her tail. "Miss Sullivan, I hadn't realized you'd be with us this weekend." The concierge scurries forward and Jo glances over at Chloe surprised.

"It was a last minute trip, Charlie." She smiles sweetly at him. "Late check in, they said the room wasn't ready so I sort of started the party on the strip, hope you don't mind I brought them back with me."

Charlie doesn't look fazed but Jo supposes they get paid a lot of money not to look fazed when a guest shows up with over fifty people in tow. "Of course ma'am. Would you like me to check on your room?"

"That would be great." Chloe winks at him.

"_When did she get a room?"_ AC asks.

"_About five seconds ago_,_" _Victor says and they can hear him typing rapidly through the headsets. _"And oh, according to the computer, it's still not ready. Man, such bad service for such a luxury resort." _

"I'm sorry ma'am." Charlie frowns. "But your room still doesn't seem to be ready."

"That's okay. It's a really nice night huh?" Chloe looks up at the sky.

"Thought I saw a storm cloud earlier but it seems to have disappeared."

"Imagine that." Barbas smirks and Chloe resists the urge to smack him in the back of his head.

"Look, seeing as how it's such a nice night, maybe we can just continue this party in the courtyard, just until the room's ready?" Chloe offers and Charlie hesitates. "I'll be more than happy to accommodate any of the other guests if things get too out of hand." When he still doesn't say anything she steps back. "No worries, we'll just head to the Palms. Jo, you want to give them a call, have them book the Sky Villa, tell them to stock it with the usual, no bartenders or butler's service…please let them know this is a private function."

"There's no need for that." Charlie caves at the thought of losing her business.

"We could stay in the Atrium," Chloe offers and he pauses.

"We've already set up for breakfast in there," he tells her. "You know what, there's only one other occupied villa this weekend and they don't make much of a fuss. I'm sure it'll be no problem."

"_That's lucky."_ Dinah snorts.

"_Luck has nothing to do with it." _Victor says. _"I had to use some of my more ungentlemanly skills to cancel most of the reservations and transfer the guests already checked in. Someone at the Palms is definitely going to get fired for comping three Sky Villas. _

"You always take care of me, Charlie." Chloe smiles at the concierge, ignoring the chatting in her ear. "Can you do me a favor, pump in a nice club beat then seal off the casino entrance?"

"Of course." Charlie nods as she walks right through the door and the crowd follows her.

Chloe nods subtly to Oliver and his team as they slip out of the Atrium and into the courtyard behind the backs of the three angels on guard who are momentarily distracted by the deafening bass line pounding through the speakers. "Hey!" one of them yells when they notice the group.

Chloe sees the hotel's security team lock off the casino entrance and she grabs Jo's arm pulling her against the villa walls, hiding the both of them behind a large palm. "They're all yours," she tells Barbas who allows his eyes to flood with black before turning to the angels.

Barbas smiles and raises a hand, stopping the first angel in his tracks. Chloe recognizes him as the angel Adriel, the man all too eager to kill her. Barbas lifts him off the ground and cuts off his air, not that he needs to breathe. "I've got nothing against you three, so if one of you would kindly run along and fetch Zachariah, I might consider letting…two of you live." The other two angels don't move even as the first guy is lifted higher and higher into the air. "The longer you stand there, the more I'm leaning toward letting only one of you live," Barbas points out.

The other two run past the group of demons and into the villa in the corner. "Alpha team go." Chloe watches as the angels from the east and north entrances run into the fray. "Beta team, Charlie team go," Chloe says and sees Dean and Castiel slip into the courtyard followed closely by Dinah and her team.

Jo starts forward and Chloe tightens her grip on Jo's arm. "Not yet." The door to the villa in the corner flies open and twenty or so angels run out. "Okay, go." Chloe slides along the exterior wall until they reach the villa and then they slip inside.

"Whoa." Jo stops. "This is a hotel room?"

"Private Villa," Chloe offers.

Jo tries hard to take it all in. There is a 40-inch flat screen TV anchored to the wall above a giant waterfall fireplace hybrid type thing, the logistics of which are giving her a headache. "Is there a hot tub in the living room?" Jo whispers in awe.

"That's new." Chloe nods. "There's a Swarovski Crystal chandelier in each bathroom." She looks over at Jo amused. "And Monet in the walk-in closet."

"So you've stayed here before?" Jo frowns.

"A few times, all business I assure you." Chloe shrugs it off.

"The concierge knew your name," Jo points out.

"Maybe we should find Chuck." Chloe changes the subject.

A very high pitched shriek comes from the direction of the bedroom and Chloe and Jo take off to investigate. They practically crash the door down trying to get to him. They find Chuck standing on the middle of a round bed that's slowly rotating in place. There's a harem, because honestly that's the only word that seems to fit, an actual harem of scantily clad women circled him all giggling with laughter. "No really…" Chuck says backing away toward the headboard and losing his balance because of the movement as one of the woman pulls his belt slowly from his waist. "I appreciate the sentiment, honestly but it's not necessary."

"Chuck?" Chloe raises an eyebrow. He looks up and catches her eye, an excuse ready on his lips as the woman flips the button on his jeans open and they fall around his ankles. He stands there, a horrified expression on his face, Captain America boxers riding low on his hips and Jo can't help but let out a chuckle. "We're uh here to save you?" Chloe asks as if it's a question, wondering if he actually needs saving.

"Oh thank God." Chuck sighs in relief, scrambling for his jeans and struggling to pull them up as he stumbles off the bed and away from the harem. The girls all let out a collective sigh of disappointment. "I was starting to think you guys would never get here."

"Right." Chloe shakes her head. "I'm-"

"Chloe." Chuck smiles buttoning his pants. "I know."

Chloe pauses. "I suppose you should huh, otherwise what the hell kind of prophet are you?"

Chuck nods and Jo walks over to the bed, grabs something and then hands it to him, it's his belt. "Thanks, that was getting..." He looks back at the bed and the girls all perk up at his attention. "Annoying."

"Annoying?" Chloe raises her eyebrows at him. "Being kidnapped and held hostage by a group of seriously pissed off angels should be a bit more than just annoying don't you think?"

"Yeah, well." Chuck shrugs. "I knew they weren't going to kill me."

"No not unless they planned on killing you with skankiness." Jo snorts.

"Oh them?" Chuck shrugs. "They're trying to keep me happy. If they hurt me, they've got an archangel to contend with."

Chloe frowns. "I'd think after everything that really wouldn't apply anymore."

"I didn't think so either but after their first, less than courteous attempt at abducting me leveled a 7-Eleven, they went a different route," Chuck says. "Besides, they're not trying to kill me, they took me for a reason."

"They want to know how it all turns out," Chloe guesses. Chuck puts a finger to his nose and nods. "And do you know how it all turns out?"

"That's a complicated question with an even more complicated answer." Chuck cringes.

"But you know something?" Chuck nods. They all turn to the window at the sound of shattering glass.

"Someone's going to call the cops." Jo winces.

"Not likely," Chloe assures her. "What happens here stays here. Charlie knows how good a tipper I am and he also knows I'm good for any damages. He'll just look the other way."

"If you say so." Jo winces again at what sounds like a very large concrete fountain crumbling to pieces.

"Did you tell them?" Chloe asks Chuck blocking everything else out. "Chuck this is important, did you tell them anything?"

"I haven't seen anything since they took me which I used to think was a blessing but not so much these days." Chloe just stares at him because her question wasn't answered. "I haven't told them anything." Chuck looks offended by the mere suggestion that he would do such a thing.

"Good." Chloe turns her attention to Jo. She doesn't say anything but Jo nods at her and grabs Chuck's elbow. "This is Jo; she'll be your tour guide off the battlefield today."

"Keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times, do whatever I tell you to do and don't try to be a hero," Jo tells him.

"Trust me that won't be a problem," Chuck assures the both of them.

They make it out of the room, leaving the half naked woman to their own devices, which apparently consists of a half naked pillow fight. Chloe assumes that the woman aren't real, that they were merely conjured up by the angel's for the sole purpose of entertaining Chuck because no way woman in real life actually behave like that outside of porn.

They slip out of the villa unnoticed and into the courtyard. Chloe assess the battle raging and it's not going great, but it's not going horribly wrong. There are a few bodies on the ground, some she recognizes, and some she doesn't. Most of them are hunters whose names she never bothered to learn, but a few she knows are Kandorian and she cringes at the hell she's going to get from Zod when all this is said and done.

Strong fingers wrap around her neck and she's lifted into the air. She hears Jo scream and sees her shoved aside by an unseen assailant. "I thought we had a deal," a familiar voice says in Chloe's ear and she cuts her eyes to the left to see Barbas standing there, an angry look on his face and feels his fingers tighten around her throat. She looks over at Chuck who seems to be taking the _'don't try and be a hero'_ thing to heart and has hidden himself behind one of the columns. Jo is pulling herself to her feet slowly.

Chloe kicks out her leg, catching Barbas in the gut, causing him to release her and drop her to the ground. "Actually we never formally made a deal," Chloe says, unapologetic.

"Your people are killing my people." Barbas smiles insanely at her and that's when Chloe notices the other bodies of those recently possessed humans. "You bring me here to help you with the angels and then you stab me in the back like this?" Barbas backhands her, and her head slams to the side. Chloe sees Chuck out of the corner of her eye, Jo running up to him, grabbing his arm and pulling him away.

"I'd be glad to actually do that, if you'd kindly turn around." Chloe spits some blood to the ground and pulls the sword out of its sheath where it was hiding under her shirt. "Did you honestly think I would pass up this opportunity?"

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"_Lucas, how goes the mustache growing?" _

_"It doesn't." Lucas glares at her. "And thanks for rubbing that in." He frowns and motions to the sword. "What's that?'_

"_Ah, Cass got me a shiny new sword." Chloe slaps it down on the table. "Except it's not very shiny and I doubt it's at all new." _

"_I can clean it for you." Lucas looks up at the sword. _

"_That's why you're the best." Chloe smiles and pulls herself up onto the table top. "Dean said you need to talk to me." _

_"I need to know what you want me to arm the volunteers with_,_" Lucas says. _

"_Weapons_,_" Chloe says and Lucas rolls his eyes at her. _

"_What kind of weapons?" Lucas searches through a cabinet before grabbing a rag and walking back to Chloe's sword. "Look, I know we've got some kind of truce going on with the demons but I wasn't sure if you wanted to be safer rather than sorry and load them up with the demon killing rounds and blades." _

_Chloe looks over at Dean. "It's not a truce_,_" she says. "If they get a chance, they should go for it. Go ahead and use them." _

"_Okay." Lucas nods._

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"No." Barbas shakes his head and grabs her wrist, squeezing until she drops the sword to the ground. "I didn't think you would. Now word from higher up is I'm not allowed to hurt you, I'm not technically allowed to touch you." He looks at her glaring. "Not even a little." He brings a hand up and gently wipes some of the blood off of her bottom lip. "So I just want you to allow me to return the favor somehow." Barbas snaps his fingers and turns his head.

Chloe sees it too late to stop it, too late to even scream before hands grab AC by the head and twists viciously, snapping his neck and severing his spinal column in one swift motion. The demon drops his dead limp body to the ground and steps over it, already ignoring it. Pretending it's not even there.

Chloe and Jo are not the only ones who've seen AC's death. Dinah saw it too and after a moment of shock gives way to understanding, she takes in a deep breath and Chloe knows what's coming. She claps her hands to her ears but nothing happens, no sound, no sonic scream, just a strangled cry. Chloe looks to see blood pouring out of her throat, a demon standing in front of her holding a large bloody sliver of glass, likely from one of the broken atrium windows and then he lets Dinah's body simply fall to the ground.

"There, now we're even." Barbas lets go of Chloe and walks away. Chloe feels herself drawing in breath but she's so lightheaded she barely registers it. AC and Dinah, it doesn't make sense. Logically she knew that this war wouldn't be without it's causalities but she never imagined that it would be her people that would fall in the battle. She wants nothing more than for all of this to be over.

"Don't," a voice says from behind her and she turns to see Chuck and Jo standing there. Jo is frozen in place staring at the spot where AC lay motionless.

"Jo!" Chloe snaps at the girl. "Get him out of here now."

Jo turns abruptly and nods, tightening her grip on Chuck's arm and pulling him away, or attempting to pull him away but he holds his ground against her. "Chloe." Chuck forces her attention to him. "Don't do it. What you're thinking about doing, just don't."

For a minute she wants to feign ignorance, pretend that she doesn't know what he's talking about but knows that would be futile against a prophet. "Did you see?" Chloe asks him helplessly. "What I'll do? Did you see?"

"No," Chuck admits reluctantly, "I didn't."

"But you know what I might do?"

"Yes, but _might_ is the operative word here," Chuck reminds her.

"I can't take that chance." Chloe shakes her head and turns to Jo. "You get him out of here, no matter what. They'll need him."

"But-" He's cut short as Jo pulls him away again. He calls back to her, "It's not going to work."

_Yes, there are two paths you can go by_

_But in the long run_

_There's still time to change_

_The road you're on._

_-Led Zeppelin_


	9. Across the Universe

__

**Across the Universe**

__

Wrds are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,

They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe

Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,

Possessing and caressing me.

Victor is lying on the terracotta pavers that span the courtyard but Chloe can see his chest rising and falling so she keeps moving. Oliver is trying and failing to hold his own, while Adriel mercilessly beats the life out of him. Dean is seconds away from death , Zachariah standing over him with a sadistic smile on his face. Castiel is losing his own fight for survival with none other than Raphael who appears to be wielding a sword that's actually on fire. This whole thing had gone south in less than a second.

She's torn between where to go, who to save, when the decision is made for her as Oliver finally loses his battle with consciousness and Adriel goes in for the kill. Before she can remind herself that her weapons are useless against the angels, she grabs her sword from the ground and her feet propel her across the courtyard. She uses all her strength to force the sword into Adriel's back. She can feel it slice straight through bones and then his spinal column and she angles it up, nicking his ribs and puncturing his lungs before she hits the heart.

She pulls the sword out of the angel and he falls to the ground. There is a moment of surprise on his face before a brilliant white light explodes out of him, blanketing the courtyard and probably everything in a five mile radius. The force of it knocks Chloe to the ground, knocks everyone to the ground. It shatters all the windows in the mansion's villas and then the entire glass enclosure of the atrium; shards of shattered glass hailing down around them.

When she can see again, Adriel is lying there lifeless, the burnt outline of a pair of wings on the concrete around his body. She doesn't have time to think about this, to think of the implications, because there's no time. The others have all recovered as well and the fight is back on.

Castiel pulls himself to his feet and waits for the fiery blade of Raphael's sword to slice through his torso but it never does. He can feel the heat of the blade but it never reaches his skin, instead he hears the all too familiar sound of metal hitting metal. He turns to see Chloe standing defiantly in front of him, her sword raised in offense, clashing with the flaming sword and to his amazement, holding it off.

"Go help Dean," Chloe yells at him, a note of panic and hysteria in her voice and Castiel turns where she's looking.

Dean is fighting Zachariah, and losing. Castiel calculates that Dean can only withstand two to three more minutes before death occurs but still he doesn't move. He hesitates, his sense of duty divided.

"I've got this." Her voice is slightly stronger. "Go," she says again, but this time it's an order and reluctantly he obeys.

Raphael pushes his sword against Chloe's and the fire is so close it licks at her skin but it doesn't burn. She pushes right back and a brief moment of surprise shows on Raphael's borrowed face. Chloe smiles. Raphael pulls back his weapon, Chloe imitates him and they stand only feet apart staring intently at each other. Raphael draws his inquisitive gaze from Chloe's face and moves it to her sword. The shock that registers in his eyes is genuine and Chloe knows it was not intended for her to see.

"Where did you get that?" he growls at her.

Chloe cuts her eyes very quickly to her sword confused. "It was a mail order prize."

"That sword is not yours. You will give it back," Raphael orders her.

"Not a chance. " Chloe shrugs. "Free with the proof of purchase from 10 boxes of Fruit Loops. Do you know how long it took to eat 10 boxes of Fruit Loops?" Chloe moves to the right and Raphael mimics her. They're now circling each other.

"If you do not surrender that weapon, I will be forced to take it from you," Raphael warns her.

"You can try," Chloe scoffs. "Castiel gave me this sword. He says it's mine, and I'll be damned if anyone but him takes it away from me."

"He cannot honestly believe that you are the sword's true wielder." Raphael shakes his head. "Castiel is mistaken, it is not possible. I know who you really are and I know what you are supposed to do," Raphael says to her.

"I really don't think you do." Chloe shakes her head.

"What do you think is going to happen here exactly?" Raphael walks around her. "Do you think I am afraid of you? Do you expect me to stop?"

"No." Chloe watches passively as he feints right. She twists slightly to the left, dropping her sword just a bit, and Raphael effortlessly slides his sword into her stomach. "I expect you to kill me." She smiles.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Chloe!" Dean screams painfully from the other side of the field. All the fighting seems to halt immediately. Dean can't seem to process what he's actually seeing. He stares at the tip of the sword sticking out of Chloe's back, dripping her blood onto the ground but it doesn't make any sense.

Chloe laughs, the sound is somehow hollow and triumphant and it reverberates throughout the courtyard. She looks down at the sword as Raphael pulls it free from her stomach. Her knees give out and they splash into a mixture of her own blood and water from the broken fountain as she sinks to the ground. She looks up at Raphael who is staring at her in confusion. "Thank you." She smiles in relief before she falls all the way backward, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

Dean runs toward her, sliding in a mixture of mud and blood and slaps his hand down on the wound in her stomach, trying desperately to stop the flow of blood. "Someone help me," he screams over his shoulder.

No one moves, no one speaks, hardly anyone breathes and then lighting appears in the cloudless twilight sky and slams into the middle of the courtyard, demolishing what's left of the fountain and splitting the ground open. The lightening is gone as quick as it appeared and standing in its place is Lucifer himself. He looks over to Chloe's body on the ground then around the courtyard at everyone else. "This is over now." He declares. He sends a pointed look at Barbas then snaps his fingers. All as one the demon's vessels lean their heads back and columns of black smoke erupt out of them and they all collapse to the ground unconscious.

"You can leave or I can make you," Lucifer says to Raphael. "You are not ready for this fight, brother." The Archangel cuts his eyes to Chloe's body and then to Zachariah and nods, taking a few steps back before the angels disappear as one.

The only ones left in the courtyard now are Chloe's people and Lucifer. "She's not dead," Lucifer says to Dean, who barely manages to take his eyes off of Chloe to glare at the devil.

"She looks pretty dead to me," Dean croaks out.

"He's telling the truth." Castiel sounds confused. "Her body has simply shut itself down to heal."

"Take her back to the camp," Lucifer says. "She'll recover in a day, maybe less." He turns and is gone.

Dean reaches down and grabs Chloe, lifting her into his arms and turns to their angel. "Cass, take care of the bodies. Bring our guys back to the camp for a proper burial, get rid of the rest. Oliver, deal with the hotel."

"Dean." Castiel steps forward. "Hear her out, she had her reasons."

"She always has a reason." Dean snorts.

Castiel nods, lays a hand on his shoulder and they're gone.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean stares into the flames of the massive funeral pyre that contains their dead, among them AC and Dinah. Oliver had started digging graves for them but Dean stopped him. "They died a hunter's death, they get a hunter's funeral," he'd said. Dean thinks when Chloe wakes up and remembers, she's never going to forgive herself. Then he snorts at the thought of Chloe waking up. It's already been eight hours and there's no sign of life. Though Oliver tells Dean that she's gone as long as twenty nine hours before.

"What did Castiel mean?" Dean's positioned himself away from the rest of the campers so Oliver walks over to him, the other's following close behind.

"What did Cass mean about what?" Dean asks, not averting his gaze from the fire.

"When he said she had a reason," Oliver says. "When he asked you to hear her out."

Dean contemplates feigning ignorance but he doesn't have the energy. "She did it on purpose."

Lois looks over at him confused. "What do you mean?'

"She did it on purpose," Dean reiterates. "Chloe stepped into the sword." When they still look at him as if he's speaking another language, he shakes his head.

"I don't…" Lois stutters.

"She let him stab her, she wanted him to stab her," Dean says slowly. "She was basically committing suicide by flaming sword."

"You can't know that," Clark tells him.

"I've trained her." Dean turns away from the fire. "Alia kicks her ass daily, drilling her on her footwork and swordsmanship. I know her body, how it moves, how it fights." Dean sighs. "She could have blocked that shot. She left herself wide open on purpose."

"No," Oliver says forcefully. "No way, not Chloe."

Dean turns to Alia who cautiously steps forward. "She leaned into it," Alia tells them. "Pivoted at the last second, she had more than enough time to block it or step away from it. She chose not to and I believe that was purposeful."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Clark snaps at them. "Chloe would never do anything like that. You don't know her."

"I know her," Dean says. "I know her better than you think. I know that something's been off with her for months. She's been hiding something, afraid of something." Everyone is quiet thinking about this. "She's been lying to me for months now."

"Ever since she was taken," Chuck says from behind them and they all turn to him. "She hasn't been right since she was taken by Lucifer."

"Exactly." Dean nods.

Everyone is looking at Chuck, wondering who he thinks he is and what exactly qualifies him to have an opinion on the matter. "Hi, I'm Chuck. The Prophet." They still look at him confused. "You guys just staged an invasion to rescue me, uh thanks for that by the way."

"We know who you are," Lois says, her voice slightly annoyed, slightly accusatory, as if she blames Chuck for what happened to Chloe.

"Right, I suppose you do." Chuck claps his hands together. "Dean's right, she did it on purpose. I tried to tell her, to warn her but she wouldn't listen to me."

"You saw this?" Oliver asks. "You had a vision or whatever of her doing this?"

"Yes."

"And you know why?" Dean asks him. "Was it because of Lucifer?"

"He told her something, something that she's terrified of coming to pass, something she'd do anything to make sure never happens. She thought if she died, she could stop it." Chuck sticks his hands in his pockets, more than a little uncomfortable with everyone staring at him. "Guess she didn't know she couldn't die."

"What did he say to her?" Dean asks. "What could he tell her that has her so terrified she thinks death is her only option?"

Chuck opens his mouth then shakes his head. "I think she needs to be the one to tell you that."

Dean starts to walk away. "Where are you going?" Sam asks him.

"Chloe's room." Dean stops and takes a breath. "I'm going to sit there until she wakes up, I'm going to make her tell me what the hell is going on and then I'm going to kill her myself for being so stupid."

"Sounds like a solid plan." Sam nods and Dean smiles slightly.

"He's not really going to…" Bart is halfway to Dean, ready to defend Chloe if the situation arises.

"No." Sam shakes his head then pauses. "Probably not."

Bart isn't very assured but he backs down anyway.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_"That was stupid." Jimmy frowns down at Chloe shaking his head. She looks around confused. She's not back in her old apartment above the Talon, she's in her cabin at the camp, in her bed at the cabin at the camp. "And it didn't even work." _

_Chloe sits up and Jimmy moves out of her way as she looks around the room. "So then I'm not dead?" _

_"Nope." Jimmy shakes his head and moves to the chair beside the bed. "Not dead, just asleep." _

_"It didn't kill me?" Chloe asks confused. "How could that not have killed me?" She runs her fingers through her hair and drops them to her lap. _

_"A better question is, how could you have possibly thought that was a good idea?" Jimmy asks her. _

_"I thought…" Chloe trails off._

_"You thought it would fix everything?" Jimmy asks and she nods. "Trying to kill yourself by impaling yourself on the flaming sword of an Archangel would have been a spectacular way to go but it wouldn't have fixed anything. If Cass is to be believed, that you're the key to ending this whole thing, and it had it actually worked, it probably just would have screwed everyone even more than they already are." _

_"Why didn't it work?" Chloe asks him. _

_"I don't know." Jimmy shrugs. "I only know what you know." Jimmy narrows his eyes at her. "And I think you knew that it wouldn't work, well I think you suspected anyway." Chloe doesn't say anything. "Look you got the short end of the stick here and that sucks. But whether you like it or not, you're going to have to do something." Chloe looks over at him. "I'm not saying you're going to kill God, I'm not saying you're going to cure him, but you're going to have to do something Chloe. There's no easy way out of this one." _

_"I know." She groans and drops her head back to the pillow._

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Consciousness comes back more gradually this time. Normally it comes on suddenly and it always takes Chloe by surprise. One second there is nothing and the next she's awake, she's more than awake, her entire body is awake, all of her nerves are firing at the same time, her senses are taking in anything and everything all at once. But not this time.

First, all she can do is feel; feel the touch of the bed sheets under her fingertips, the rough blanket lying on top of her, one stray strand of hair falling annoyingly across her nose. The next to come is her hearing; she can hear the sound of the crickets outside a steady noise that overlays the soft murmur of voices and footsteps. Then there's smell. She can smell the slightly musty scent of the cabin mixed with something…familiar. She doesn't bother opening her eyes, simply raises her hands to her stomach and breathes deep.

"It didn't work," Chloe whispers, her fingers trailing over her stomach as she searches for a wound, a scar, anything-anything at all to indicate that not two hours ago she was run through with a broad sword, not just any broad sword either a flaming broad sword that was being wielded by an Archangel. "It didn't fucking work," she pants out.

"So you did mean to kill yourself then?" Dean asks from beside her. Chloe turns her head and opens her eyes to see him sitting in the chair in the corner. She knows now the mystery familiar smell is something distinctly Dean. He looks like he hasn't slept in days, his voice is rough and scratchy and it seems like at any second he could kiss her or kill her.

"What are you doing here?" Chloe pulls herself up in the bed and realizes that just because it didn't kill her, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like hell.

"I'm waiting for you to wake up, so I can kill you myself." Dean runs his hands over his face.

"Yeah well apparently, it won't work." Chloe slams her head against the wall in extreme annoyance and it only serves to add a pounding headache onto her throbbing gut.

"You meant to kill yourself?" Dean asks again and Chloe nods once. There's no point in trying to deny it, it would have been painfully obvious to anyone bothering to pay attention. "Why?" She shrugs, not wanting to do this here, now.

"AC and Dinah?" Chloe croaks out and Dean sighs.

"Dead."

He merely confirms what she already knows and she closes her eyes. She hears the chair squeak and then footsteps on the floorboards. She hopes Dean is taking the hint that she's not in the mood to talk but she knows that's not the case when she feels his hands on the edge of her shirt, pulling it up, pushing it out of the way.

"You won't find anything," Chloe offers him.

"Really?" he murmurs.

"I don't scar anymore," she tells him, her eyes still closed as his fingers skim over the skin of her abs in amazement.

There's nothing there nothing at all and Dean distinctly recalls his hands on that very spot, drenched in blood putting as much pressure as he dared in an attempt to keep her insides on the inside.

"At all?" he asks her, moving a hand to her face, brushing hair out of the way to look at the place where there should be a huge jagged scar from the first time they met and the ceiling fell on top of her.

"I rarely bleed anymore." Chloe opens her eyes and he's right there, his face inches from hers.

"Your power?" Dean asks, not dropping his hand from her cheek, not moving away.

Chloe shrugs. "That's not how it worked before but everything's pretty much ass backward these days, so who knows. I noticed it a few months ago after a hunt. The demons in Raleigh, that one chick stabbed me in the side remember, cut me up pretty good. Before we got home the bleeding had stopped. When I got out of the shower the skin was already sewing itself back together." Dean moves his hands to her side and sure enough there's nothing there but pristine skin. He starts to pull his hand away but Chloe reaches out, covering it with her own, holding it in place.

Dean swallows. "What did he say to you?"

Chloe shakes her head and leans forward, closing the distance between the two of them and sliding her lips against Dean's. He seems surprised at first but it doesn't take long for his hand to find it's way into her hair, for the fingers on her stomach to travel to her waist, gripping, pulling her closer. Chloe makes a soft greedy whimper in the back of her throat and Dean pulls away.

"No," he whispers and Chloe moves herself forward, kissing him again. He pushes her away this time and holds her at arm's length firmly. "No," he reiterates and she practically pouts at him. "I'm not doing this with you again, not now," Dean tells her angrily. He moves further down the bed and sits, trying to calm his own breathing remembering the first time she did this to him, the first time they did this.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_Chloe never turns down a good hunt if she can help it and this will be her first official demon hunt. Dean's found a demon nest in Raleigh and she has her things packed and ready to go before he even finishes telling her about the job. He brings five others with them, he should have brought fifteen. There had been way more demons than they were prepared for. He takes home only Chloe._

_For a while there it feels good, the first time in a long time Dean has worked up a really good sweat, a great fight. But then he's ambushed from behind, caught off guard. Strong hands wrap around his neck. Everyone's dead, everyone but Chloe and last he saw her, she was busy with her own fight. He's running out of air fast when suddenly the hands are gone and he can breathe._

_He turns around and sees Chloe, catches the briefest glint of a knife in her hands as it swings forward, slicing into the throat of the possessed man. She pushes upward and to the left, cutting through the skin and the arteries. Blood spatters onto her shirt and face as the demon inside the man dies violently in a storm of lightning and the dead body of the man falls to the ground. _

_Dean gasps in air, his throat burning with every breath as Chloe stands there panting, staring at him. Her eyes are slightly wild and he looks down at her hand. It's clenching the knife so tightly her knuckles are white. She lets out a haggard breath and opens her fist wide, dropping the knife to the floor. "You okay?" she asks him and he hears it, a slight shake. _

_He nods, not trusting his voice just yet and bends down to retrieve the knife. He wipes the blood off on his sleeve and slides the knife into his belt. She looks down at her neck and hands, at the blood splatter then at the large pool of her own blood seeping out of a cut in her side and blows out a breath. "I need a shower." _

_Dean chuckles and steps over the dead body, grabbing her shoulder and leading her to the door. He has a feeling that her legs are shaking as much as her arms but he also has a feeling that she will never admit to that. "Let's go home." _

_She nods and allows him to lead her out of the house. "The bodies?" she asks him vaguely, as he opens the car door and pushes her in gently. _

_"Cass will take care of it," he tells her before climbing in on his side and starting the engine. _

_"Good." Chloe turns her head away from the house and closes her eyes. "Good." _

_When they get back to the camp, she walks straight to her cabin without a word to anyone, leaving Dean to explain what happened, why she's covered in blood and where Castiel can find a house full of dead bodies that would be most helpful if disappeared quietly. He goes to his own cabin, showers, changes and wanders off in the vague direction of the mess hall, his stomach growling, only to find himself standing on the porch of Chloe's cabin. _

_"Chloe?" Dean knocks on the door and opens it when he receives no answer. He looks down on the ground and sees the hoodie she had on earlier that night, drenched in blood. He follows a trail of blood droplets from the front door to the bedroom where he can faintly hear the shower running. Chloe's jeans are on the floor by the bathroom door and Dean pushes them gently with his foot. They are just as drenched with blood as the hoodie and he hopes she isn't too terribly attached to either piece of clothing because they're both a lost cause. "Chloe? I thought you might be hungry," he calls out again. _

_"I'm in the bathroom. I'll be out in a minute," she says. Her voice is slightly shaky still. You won't notice it unless you're listening for it. Dean's listening for it. It had been a bad night. A really bad night, even in their line of work. Dean turns to look at the massive wall of newspaper clippings and computer printouts, everything she's ever been able to find that even vaguely hints at the Solomon Prophecy. He's so engrossed he doesn't notice when the water turns off._

_"Oracle's got it all loaded in a massive database that works out about three thousand calculations per second trying to find connections and links between everything, but sometimes you just really need a big wall of pictures you know," Chloe says from behind him._

_"Yeah." Dean nods and turns around, only to turn right back again and stare at the wall. He finds himself suddenly fascinated by an article talking about antiques stolen from an Iraqi museum. "Uh Chloe?"_

_"Yeah?" Her voice is closer now, like she's right behind him. He looks over his shoulder briefly and sure enough, there she is, not two inches from his back._

_"You maybe want to put some clothes on?" he asks. _

_"I'm not really in any rush," Chloe tells him. "What's the matter? Can't handle it?" _

_"Oh darling, I can handle it." Dean smirks. To prove his point, he turns around but studiously looks at her face and nowhere else. "You hoping to start a new trend? Maybe enforce a dress code? 'cause I gotta say, I like the way you think." _

_"How hungry are you?" she asks him, stepping closer, closing that last foot between them, pressing her naked body gently against the front of his fully clothed one. _

_"I was starving before but now…not so much." Dean swallows._

_"Good." Chloe reaches up, sliding her hands up his chest and around to the back of his neck, pulling him closer. "Cause I've got something else planned for the rest of the night." _

_She pulls on his neck one more time, bringing his head down, kissing him and he closes his eyes, lost in the sensation. "Chloe, we really…" She's walking backward, pulling him with her, keeping her body pressed against his the whole time. The back of her knees hit the edge of the mattress and she allows herself to fall, pulling Dean down with her and now he's on top of her. "This is a really bad idea," he whispers into her neck. She's still slightly wet from her shower and Dean can taste the warm water on her mixed with the smell of her shampoo, a bit like apples and vanilla. It's the same smell that's been driving him wild for months now. A smell that he has come to think of as Chloe. _

_She moans, her hands abandoning his neck and finding their way to his hips, gripping them tightly and pulling him further on top of her. "Take off your pants," she whispers in his ear._

_He groans in pleasure and pulls back slightly. "A really bad idea," he reiterates. _

_She opens her eyes and looks up at him. Her pupils are blown and her lips are swollen and Dean suddenly feels like he's got way too many clothes on. "I killed a bunch of people today," she whispers. "Most likely they were good people, innocent people, people who did nothing more than have the unfortunate luck to get possessed by a passing demon. I killed them in cold blood and I'd do it again in a heartbeat and I don't feel bad about that." Dean swallows as her hands slide up under the back of his shirt, her skin finally meeting his as she rubs them up and down his back, dipping under the waist band of his pants and gripping his ass, pulling it toward her sending waves of pleasure through the both of them. "I don't feel bad about that and right now I'm afraid I'll never feel anything again. So please, for the next thirty minutes, I just need you to make me feel something. So do us both a favor and just take off your fucking pants." _

_"OK," Dean agrees, partly because he understands how she feels and partly because good intentions aside, he's not sure he could stop right now if he wanted to. _

_::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::_

"Dean." Chloe laughs, sitting up straighter, puling herself to her knees and looking at him amused. "Come on." She crawls over to him and straddles his lap. His hands automatically slide to her hips, keeping her in place. She kisses him again, pushing against his chest, lowering him back to the bed.

"Chloe, don't," he protests but it's weaker this time.

"I almost died today," she pants against his lips, bringing him back to reality.

He quickly flips the both of them over, pinning her to the bed and pulling away. "That's what happens when you try to kill yourself," he says angrily.

"Are you mad?" Chloe stares up at him and his jaw twitches in response. "You are mad." She pulls herself up so that she's leaning on her elbows and Dean doesn't move from his position above her.

"You're damn right, I'm mad," he tells her.

"God." Chloe slams her head against the pillow and closes her eyes. "I knew you'd be a girl about this whole thing."

"That's not even what this is about," Dean counters and Chloe opens her eyes disbelievingly. "I'm not being a girl."

"Prove it." Chloe wiggles underneath him and Dean closes his eyes, biting his tongue.

"That's not going to work." Dean shakes his head and grunts when Chloe wraps a leg around him and pulls him down, slamming his hips onto hers, crashing their lips together.

"My friends died today," she whispers against his skin as her lips mark a trail from his cheek to his jaw, up to that spot right behind his ear that makes his eyes roll into the back of his head. "I almost died…" He makes a move to pull away and Chloe tightens her grip on his shoulders. "But I didn't. I should have died and I'm here alive and that's…weird and I just need to know for sure, that I'm really still here." She slides her tongue up the outer lobe of his ear and against his will he shudders. "I need to feel alive, Dean," she whispers in his ear, and the shudder moves from his ear straight to his dick. "Make me feel alive."

He can't fight her anymore, doesn't want to fight her anymore and he gives in. He grabs her chin and turns her head to look at him. They stare for a minute, Dean searching for something in her face.

"Dean?" She tilts her head to the side and he realizes whatever he's looking for, he can try and find it later. He kisses her again. He's the one launching the assault now and she's the one that shudders.

He knows she just played him, knows that she deftly and almost expertly managed to steer him away from the topic at hand because she's done it before, because he's fallen for it before, many times before. But this time he knows, this time he knows what she's doing and he lets her do it because he knows she needs it and he thinks that maybe he needs it just as much as she does. And definitely not because he's being a girl about the whole thing.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_Dean wakes up in Chloe's bed, alone. The light is on in the Situation Room and he grabs his pants and heads out there. Chloe is sitting at the desk as a program runs on Oracle's screens. She's just staring at it and drinking her coffee. _

_"We missed diner but I have a key to the pantry if you're starving," she tells him without turning around. _

_"I might take you up on that." Dean says as his stomach grumbles. "About what just happened, should we maybe talk?" He rubs the back of his head and can hardly believe how much he sounds like Sammy right now. _

_"Dean look, I thought you of all people could be cool about this. That you would not be a girl about the whole thing. I chose you for that reason," Chloe explains without taking her eyes off the screens._

_He squints, pulls out the chair next to her, and sits down. "You chose me specifically?" Dean asks. "What exactly was the criteria for that choice?" _

_"Well, you showed up at my cabin." She shrugs as if that was obvious. _

_"Glad to know the screening process was so rigorous," he mumbles and Chloe shoots him a look that pointedly says 'girl'. "Right, so you're saying that if Sam or Cass had been the one to walk through that door, you would have jumped them?" _

_Chloe pauses for a second and thinks his question over. "Probably not. Sam would have wanted to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about our feelings and where this was going, and I'm not entirely sure that Cass would know what to do with a naked woman." _

_"What about Oliver?" Dean hesitates before asking and Chloe's hands still for just a second. _

_"No," she answers him slowly. "What I needed was someone who can understand that sometimes you need someone else on a purely physical level and after it happens, there doesn't need to be any further discussion. Oliver is not that guy." _

_"You know this from experience?" Dean hates that he's scared of the answer._

_Chloe sets her cup down, turns and finally looks at him. "I thought you were the type of person." She doesn't answer him and he doesn't know what to make of that. She gets up and walks to the coffee pot, pours herself another cup and turns to face him again. "If I was wrong, let me know now and I'll be sure it never happens again." _

_"It could happen again?" Dean raises his eyebrows at her intrigued. _

_"It might." Chloe nods at him. "If you can promise we never have this discussion again."_

_"My lips are sealed." Dean smiles at her. _

_"Good." Chloe walks back to the desk and sits down, typing something into the computer and pulling up another screen. "What does Cass do with the bodies?" _

_"Huh?" Dean tears his gaze away from the monitors. _

_"You said Cass would take care of the bodies, what does he do?" _

_"He burns them." Dean coughs. _

_"So their families never know?" Her fingers are paused over the keyboard and Dean shrugs. _

_"I guess not," he says, he's never really thought about the whole thing. _

_Chloe is quiet for a while then starts typing again. "Maybe it's better that way." _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"What did he say to you?" Dean asks again, panting. He's lying beside Chloe on the bed now trying desperately to catch his breath.

"Seriously?" Chloe tilts her head toward him and smiles.

"Didn't really think you'd get off that easy did you?" Dean smirks at her. She raises her eyebrows and sits up, pulling the sheet with her in an attempt to keep herself covered up. "We're having this conversation whether you like it or not," Dean informs her. "You haven't been the same since you got back, since he took you. You've been on some sort of mission that you won't let us in on and if you could just tell us what happened, we could help you. You've got to know that you're not alone in all this." Dean sits up and leans against the head of the bed next to her.

"I know he told you something that's got you scared," Dean says and Chloe sighs. "Does whatever he told you have anything to do with why the demons don't want you dead?" Chloe nods slightly. "And would it maybe explain why Lucifer himself showed up in Vegas, got rid of the demons and the angels and then just let us go with you?"

"That's how we got out?" Chloe asks astonished.

"I can still hardly believe it myself." Dean laughs.

"I don't know if I can…" Chloe chokes on her words.

"Start at the beginning," Dean offers.

"He took me to Altamont." Chloe laughs humorlessly and turns her head so she's looking at Dean. A slow smile appears on his face. "1969, Altamont Speedway outdoor concert. I got to see the Stones live. I was ten feet away from Mick Jagger."

"How were they?" Dean asks.

"I've heard better." The side of her mouth twitches up but it doesn't stick. "He brought me to see the Stones then he brought me back to the basement and told me about the prophecy." Dean nods in an 'I know all this already' sort of way. "He told me about Solomon and how millions of years ago it was decided that I would play this huge role in the apocalypse."

"That you're supposed to heal God." Dean nods.

"That's just it." Chloe looks over at him. "Cass might be wrong about the prophecy. See, there are two ways to interpret this one word and this one word is pretty important."

"Cass says that you're supposed to heal God." Dean squints. "How else can you interpret that?" Chloe doesn't say anything. "How does Lucifer interpret that?"

"That I'm not in fact going to heal God, but that instead, I'm going to kill him."

"Kill him?" Dean's eyes get huge as Chloe nods. "Kill God?"

"Yes." Chloe nods.

"Right then." Dean pushes himself off the bed and grabs his boxers, pulls them on and walks out of the room. Chloe shrugs thinking that went rather well considering he didn't immediately pull his gun on her, not that it would have mattered much. She is surprised when the door opens a minute later and Dean comes back in with the bottle of scotch from her bottom desk drawer and two coffee mugs. He wordlessly opens the bottle and pours two glasses, passing one to Chloe. "To killing God." Dean toast then downs his drink.

Chloe follows suit and for the first time since she found out actually laughs. Dean pours another glass and leans back. "You're going to kill God?" he asks her.

"So sayeth Lucifer." Chloe nods and downs her own drink.

"How does one go about killing the Lord our God?" Dean asks.

"I'm not sure." Chloe shrugs and grabs the bottle. "Maybe there's some special weapon or ritual…fuck, I don't know."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"You don't have to do it," Dean says an hour later. "Just because they say you're supposed to do something doesn't mean you have to," he tells her. "Take me for example. I'm supposed to be the Sword of Michael but I'm still riding around in my own skin, I'm not a vessel and I'll never be a vessel."

"What do you think it's like?" Chloe asks rolling the half empty bottle of scotch between her and Dean. "Being a Vessel?"

"I don't know." Dean shrugs.

"I was too busy freaking out when Bela hitched a ride, I didn't notice. Lois says it was like…like when your in that weird place of sleep, where you're starting to wake up but you're still really asleep and you try to do something, move your arm or open your eyes and you can't and you start to panic and you're pushing and pulling with everything you've got but you can't even lift a pinky. And you scream but there's no sound so you panic and everything feels like lead, like it's unconnected from you." Chloe looks at Dean. "But you can see everything and hear everything and feel everything and yet your frozen in place."

"That sounds about right." Dean nods. "Jimmy, Cass' vessel, he said after a while you felt empty inside, completely hollow which was weird because essentially there are two people occupying your body, twice the amount of people for the space and yet you feel nothing, you feel like you are nothing. Like you're just this empty carcass that's walking around."

"We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men, leaning together, headpiece filled with straw," Chloe quotes.

"What is that?" Dean turns to her.

"It's a poem." Chloe squints. "By T.S. Elliot. It's called the Hollow Men. I thought it was fitting."

"Hmm." Dean pulls the bottle slowly from her fingers. "The end of the world is coming and you're destined to either kill God or heal him. I'm supposed to let Michael kick me out of my own body, Sam's supposed to let Lucifer wear him to Prom and we're all supposed to fight it out in the ultimate battle to the death for the whole of humanity."

"Did you have a point or were you just doing a recap for those of us coming a little late to the game?" Chloe asked.

"No, it's just, we've got all this going on and you're quoting poetry." Dean turns to her.

"T.S. Elliot." Chloe smiles.

"You don't belong here." Dean rubs his hand over his face.

"None of us belong here." Chloe laughs. "You think any of this…you think this was the ultimate plan for us? That when we were born God or our parents or whoever looked down upon us and said, 'One day, you're going to end the world'?"

"Or save it," Dean reminds her.

"Or save it?" Chloe agrees. "We were just supposed to live, like everyone else. Go for the American dream, school, job, career, find a guy, or girl, and house and white picket fence and dog named spot and two point five kids and then life happened and here we are so I figure, why not recite poetry. "Those who have crossed with direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom remember us – if at all – not as lost violent souls, but only as the hollow men, the stuffed men." Chloe sighs. "You think that was their destiny? Those people, the ones we kill without a second thought, you think it was their destiny to one day wake up and find their bodies inhabited by demons, huddled in the corner of their own minds while they watch themselves do unspeakable things, while they watch people they don't even know kill them for reasons they can't possibly understand?"

She takes a deep breath, gets up and pulls on her shirt then throws Dean's hoodie over it. "Where are you going?" Dean asks confused.

"Time to face the music," Chloe says, she knows she can't keep it to herself any longer, knows that it's time to come clean and she has to do it now before she loses her nerve or sobers up. "I'm sure they've got some questions for me and I've got a few for Cass." She looks around the room. "Where's my sword?"

"Lucas has it," Dean says. "He saw it when we brought you in and he almost had a fit."

Chloe walks to the door and throws it open, taking the steps two at a time and heading straight for the armory, Malachi jumps immediately from his perch and follows after her. When she gets to the armory, Lucas is sitting at a table, shaking his head over the condition of Chloe's sword. The flames from Raphael's sword did quite a bit of damage and killing Adriel wasn't very gentle on it either. He looks up when she comes in and she holds her hand out wordlessly. Without hesitating or even having to ask, Lucas slides the sword into her palm hilt first. She looks at it thoughtfully before turning around and walking out.

"They're all in the Mess," Dean informs her and she head in that direction, walks up the steps of the Mess Hall and looks through the window. Everyone is gathered around one of the tables in the back, talking, drinking, their expressions are solemn, their smiles fond and pained. They're mourning, something she knows she no longer has the luxury to do.

She pushes her way in and everyone stops what they're doing. They turn to look at her and though she knows they're all dying to say something, they don't say anything, they wait for her. She can see Lois literally biting her tongue. She pauses in the doorway for a second, her courage slipping away from her until she feels Dean step up behind her. He places a fleeting hand at the small of her back and she steps forward into the room.

"Why did you give this to me?" Chloe asks without preamble, throwing the sword through the air toward Castiel, who catches it without blinking.

"Because it is yours," Castiel says.

"Why is it mine?" Chloe asks him.

"I don't understand the question." Castiel frowns.

"OK, who did it belong to before it was mine?" Chloe steps closer.

"Solomon," Castiel answers and Chloe really should have seen that coming.

"Of course." Chloe sits down at the table but at least now everyone's attention is on him instead of her.

"And before that it belonged to David," Castiel continues. "It was the sword he used to chop the head off the giant Goliath, it was the sword he used to conquer the world and unite Israel. It was buried with Solomon at his death.

Chloe pauses, remembering the condition of the sword when he gave it to her, dirty and rusty. "Please tell me that you did not dig up the sword from Solomon's tomb to give it to me." She pinches the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes.

"OK then I will not tell you," Castiel informs her.

"Why?" Chloe stares at him. "Why would you do something like that?"

"Because you are the Mashiach," Castiel announces and Chloe looks at him as if he's speaking Hebrew, which, it appears, he is. Bobby and Ellen are staring at her strangely but everyone else just looks confused.

"What does that even mean, I don't know what that is." Chloe says exasperated.

"It means Messiah," Bobby interrupts, wheeling closer to her as if to study her better. "It refers to the future King, the savior of the people of Israel. A direct descendant of the line of King David."

Chloe feels the blood drain from her face. "And you think—Raphael was right, you're crazy."

"I'm not," Castiel argues.

"I'm no Messiah." Chloe laughs, the thought more ridiculous to her than anything she's heard in a while. "And I'm certainly not descended from David. I'm not even Jewish."

"Looks like you are now," Sam jokes.

"Mazel Tov." Dean turns to her with a smile and she glares at him.

"How else did you open the box?" Castiel asks. "Solomon's box could only be opened by a descendant of Solomon. You opened the box."

"So because I opened a box, you think I'm some Messiah?" Chloe sputters.

"Not in the way you think of a Messiah, not in the traditional Christian sense, but you are. I am not claiming that you are the second coming of Christ, it's not like that." Castiel shakes his head. "All it means is that you will be the one to lead the people out of this dark, that you will lead us into the Messianic Age, into the Kingdom of God."

"Do you know how insane this sounds?" Chloe's voice isn't amused anymore, it's gotten more panicky than anything, desperate.

"I know that you wield the sword of Solomon like it's an extension of your arm." He passes said sword back to her. "I know you opened the box and I know you are the one that the prophecy spoke about. Is this any more insane than that?"

Chloe looks over to Bobby who is staring at the sword. She remembers Alia using it once in their sessions, trying to demonstrate a particular move to Chloe and she couldn't seem to get a good grip on it. Alia complained that it was unbalanced, that it felt wrong in her hands, which was odd to Chloe because it felt perfect in hers. "Is it special?" Chloe asks and Bobby looks up. "Solomon's sword," My sword, she thinks but doesn't say, "is it special?"

"It's…" Bobby steals a glance at Castiel who nods slightly as if giving him permission. "They say that if used by the true wielder, the sword of Solomon can kill anything."

"Like an angel?" Chloe asks, remembering the flash of light that erupted from Adriel's body after she stabbed him with it.

"Like an angel." Bobby nods.

"Could it kill Lucifer?" Chloe asks and Bobby nods again.

"I think it could," he answers her cautiously and Chloe turns to Dean, the urge to hyperventilate strong, the conversation she had with him not two hours ago replaying in her mind.

_"How does one go about killing the Lord our God?" Dean asks. _

_"I'm not sure." Chloe shrugs and grabs the bottle. "Maybe there's some special weapon or ritual."_

Dean must be remembering the same thing she is because he turns to Bobby and swallows. "Could it kill God?" he asks and Bobby narrows his eyes. He looks between Dean and Chloe and then to Castiel, the only three people who don't seem to be concerned or surprised by this particular theory. Chloe's hand tightens on the hilt of the sword.

"In theory," Bobby finally answers and Chloe lets the sword drop to the table.

"Fuck," she says finally giving into the urge to hyperventilate.

"Put your head between your legs," Dean says softly, rubbing her back.

"Pervert." Chloe attempts to smirk at him and he smiles.

Oliver stares at the two of them and feels that something has changed between them and the thought twists his stomach.

"Why would you ask something like that?" Of all people it's Ellen who broaches the subject.

"Because." Chloe lifts her head. "That's what I'm supposed to do."

"Come again?" Bart downs the whiskey in the glass in front of him and Chloe wonders when he got old enough to drink whiskey.

"The prophecy, the reason that I wanted it so bad, the reason I wanted to see it, to read it myself was because the translation from ancient Aramaic isn't as clear cut as Castiel would have you believe," Chloe says. "There's a word that can be translated two ways. One single word that can either save us or condemn us."

"What word?" Sam asks.

" prophecy says that I will Ratsach God," Chloe explains.

"Well that means to heal," Bobby says confused.

"No." Sam sits down slowly. "No, in some places, in some translations, it means to kill, to murder."

"So now you're saying this prophecy says you're going to murder God?" Bart squints at her.

"That's what Lucifer believes, that's what the demons believe," Chloe answers them.

"And obviously that's what you believe." Oliver looks at her. "Otherwise why else would you have tried to kill yourself?"

"I don't know what to believe," Chloe whispers. "But I gotta say that the evidence is stacking up in Lucifer's favor."

"Why are you so determined to believe Lucifer over Cass?" Dean asks confused. "What makes you think you're going to kill God?"

"Because, I can't heal him," she snaps.

"If you'd just try," Castiel pleads with her.

"I have tried," she finally admits. "I've tried since that first night, since you first told me. I tried to heal anyone, of anything. I sat with Bobby for four hours last week. I can't heal a paper cut much less his legs. If I can't heal him what makes you think I can heal God when the time comes?"

"What makes you think you can kill him?" Sam asks.

"Cause killing? I'm getting really good at that," she points out. "I've lost count of the amount of people I've killed, of the blood I've shed in the past two months alone. Hell, if it weren't for me AC and Dinah would be here right now." She stands up and pushes the chair away from the table. "I brought Lois back from the brink of death, healed all of you at one time or another." She looks around the table at each member of her team and then laughs humorlessly. "I was dead for eighteen hours, all to save a man who wouldn't hesitate to kill me given the chance but when Jimmy needed me, I-" She swallowed hard. "I couldn't even save my own God damn husband." She was crying now. "He was right in front of me. We were smiling and things were finally going to be okay." She laughs a bit and then looks down at her hands. "And then there was so much blood and…" Her hands start shaking and suddenly she can't breathe through the sobs that are wracking her body. Castiel's hands cover hers, stopping the shaking, holding them against his chest before pulling her close as they both sink to the ground.

"Her husband died in front of her?" Sam asks with a whisper.

"In her arms." Oliver stares at Chloe, his heart breaking for her. "She couldn't…there wasn't anything she could do." He turns to Dean and shakes his head. "But she's never talked about it, talked about him. Two years and she's never let it out."

"It was my fault," Chloe mumbles over and over again. "I killed Davis twice for Christ sake. I killed Jimmy. I killed him and I couldn't save him."

"No." Oliver crouches down in front of her, tearing her attention away from Castiel. "It wasn't your fault." He pushes Chloe's hair out of her face. "You didn't kill Jimmy." She stares at him as if the words he's speaking to her are foreign, completely incomprehensible.

"I did." Chloe shakes her head.

"No," Oliver says again more forcefully. "It was me." He swallows, this is the first time he's admitted this out loud and he doesn't like how easily the words slip from his tongue. "I killed Jimmy, not you. If I had just done what needed to be done," Oliver explains to her, even as she shakes her head in denial.

"If I had told someone, anyone about Davis, if I had just listened to you, to Clark, asked for help," Chloe continues.

"It was my fault. I wasn't fast enough," Bart interjects..

"I've never seen so many people so eager to take credit for a murder," Sam mumbles under his breath confused.

"Would you stop it, all of you." Victor screams from across the room and they all shut up and turn to him. "AC and Dinah are dead and the only people to blame for that are the demons that killed them." They stare at him. "Jimmy is dead, but that's no more your fault than Dinah or AC or any of the others that died last night." He tells them more calmly than he feels. "And Davis Bloom killed Jimmy Olsen."

"But if I'd just killed Davis when I had the chance," Chloe protests.

"Look, I wasn't there," Dean jumps in, taking Oliver and Castiel's place by her side. "But I know it's not as simple as that. You couldn't kill Davis because you're not a killer Chloe. You saved him, you gave him a new life, the opportunity to start over," Dean explains. "He had a choice and make no mistake, it was his choice not yours. You can't save everyone, sometimes it feels like you can't save anyone but they all made their choices. You chose protect your friends the only way you knew how, you chose not to kill a man, Jimmy chose to stick by you, despite the mistakes you made, and Davis chose to become the monster that you were trying to save him from. AC and Dinah chose to go out there last night, they chose to fight." Chloe is calming with every word he says. "You have a choice now," Dean tells her. "Regardless of some prophecy or what the angels think or the demons think, you have a choice." She's still slightly worked up and Dean grabs her face in both of his hands and stares at her. "Look at me." She looks at him and swallows her sobs. "Whether you can heal him or not. It doesn't mean you have to kill him."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Why didn't you tell me?" Lois walks out onto the porch of the Mess Hall and sits herself down on the steps next to Chloe. "What made you think I wouldn't understand?"

"Because I was scared," Chloe admits. "Because I didn't want to believe it, I didn't want to think about it. I knew eventually it would come out, that at some point you would all know and I knew that when that happened you'd all look at me differently, just a little." She clarifies and she sees it already just two hours later, everyone's a little more guarded around her now. "I wanted to pretend for a little while longer that I was still like you guys, that I didn't have this destiny weighing me down."

"Chloe, you've never been like us," Lois snorts. "I mean that in the nicest possible way. You've always been different, you've always been more, meant for more, meant for greater things."

"It doesn't feel so great," Chloe says. "It feels lonely."

Lois is suddenly very sad for Chloe, because as much as she wants to reassure her cousin that she's not alone, she'd be lying and Chloe would know that she was lying. The fact of the matter is that Chloe is different. Chloe has this great destiny, this great task ahead of her that separates her from everyone else in the camp, everyone else on the planet. Lois wants to tell her that she's not truly alone, that Chloe has her that Chloe will always have her but she can't promise stuff like that anymore, not when she watched two of her friends die yesterday.

She's been feeling this for a while, this giant chasm between her and her cousin. When they were little they were so close Chloe may as well have been her sister but lately, the past few years, they've been growing apart. Not in the way that most people grow apart as they get older. Chloe seemed to be growing further and further away from Lois, in a way that she couldn't ever really comprehend. She had been, as much as Lois hates to say it, becoming someone else, something else. Lois tried desperately to stop it, tried everything she could think of but each day Chloe got further and further away from her. Now with this latest development it's like the final nail in the coffin.

Her thoughts must be betrayed by her facial expression because Chloe is looking at her soft of fondly. "I'm okay Lois, really. I've had a lot longer to process this than you guys."

"Right, about six months." Lois remembers why she came out in the first place. Oliver walks out of the doorway but stops when Lois turns to Chloe. "Is there anything else you're keeping from me?"

He knows he shouldn't be eavesdropping but he wants to hear this too. "Not at the moment, no." Chloe smiles.

"You sure? There's not something you're hiding from me and you're going to wait six months, die, come back to life then tell me?" Lois jokes.

"I wasn't planning on repeating that experience anytime soon, no," Chloe assures her.

"Are you sleeping with Dean?" Lois shoots her a sideways glance and Oliver feels his spine stiffen, this he would also really like to know.

"Wow." Chloe looks over at her cousin. "I sort of stepped right into that one didn't I?" Lois nods, pleased with herself. "You've been dying to ask me that for a while now haven't you?"

"Months." Lois nods happily.

"Yes." Chloe answers simply and sips her whiskey. Oliver lets out a shaky breath, he suspected, pretty much everyone at camp suspected but they never came out and admitted to it, they certainly never talked about it.

"For how long?" Lois frowns.

"Months." Chloe shrugs. "I don't know." Lois gives her a strange look. "It's not what you think, it's just a thing, a physical thing." Lois raises her eyebrows. "Seriously."

Oliver feels a little bit better but not by much and he's not sure he can take hearing more, so he announces his presence by letting the door shut behind him loudly. "Ladies." He nods as they turn to look at him.

"Hey, do you know where Chuck is?" Chloe stands up and brushes off her pants. "I wanted to talk to him about a few things."

"Haven't seen him since yesterday." Oliver shakes his head. "He's probably with Becky though." Chloe nods, she hasn't actually met Becky yet.

"Hey." Dean walks out of the Mess. "I think Bart's had enough," he says, amused. They look into the room and see a blur of red dash across the room and stumble into a table.

"I think you're right." Chloe makes a move to intercept him but Oliver puts a hand on her arm.

"I got him." He stops her and she nods. "He's had a rough few days. He shared a cabin with AC." Chloe swallows and nods.

"I'll help," Lois offers and heads into the Mess. Oliver pauses at the door unable to help himself as Dean and Chloe are the only ones left outside.

"You're freaking out about the whole Messiah thing, aren't you?" Dean asks her.

"Is it that obvious?" Chloe asks sheepishly.

"Glaringly." Dean laughs and Oliver frowns because it isn't to him. He was actually just marveling at how well she taking everything. "You're dying to go back to the Situation Room, aren't you?"

"I am not," Chloe protests, much too weakly to be believable.

"You are too," Dean teases her playfully and Oliver risks a glance at them to see his hand on her hip, one of his fingers wound in a belt loop on her jeans, holding her in place. "I bet you my laundry duty for a month that you were planning on going back there and staying up all night, making Oracle pull every scrap of information there ever was on Solomon and David and the…what did Castiel call it?"

"The Mashiach." Chloe looks up at him.

"Yeah that." Dean smirks.

"I wasn't planning on staying up all night," she lies unconvincingly.

"Come on, I'll make you a pot of coffee and you can tell me everything you find and I promise to stay awake even when you get to the boring stuff." Dean pulls her down the steps by her belt loop and in the direction of her cabin.

Oliver swallows and turns to find Lois with Bart draped over her shoulder. "Come on, let's get you to bed."

"I don't want to go back there." Bart tries to pull away from Lois. "It's just an empty cabin."

Oliver slides his arm under Bart's free shoulder and sighs. "I know exactly what you're talking about," he says, before dragging Bart away.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe opens the door to her cabin. Before she's even turned her light on she's pulling off Dean's hoodie. "Oracle, I need you to get me everything you can find on..." She pauses as Dean turns on the cabin lights and through the open door into the bedroom she sees Chuck sitting on the edge of her bed. "Chuck."

"Any particular Chuck or just every Chuck in history?" Oracle asks in a snotty tone.

Chloe ignores the computer, walks to the bedroom door and turns on the light. Chuck looks gaunt and tired, his face is pale and his shoulders are tense. "You look like shit." Chloe smiles hoping to elicit the same from him and it works, a little.

"You look much better than the last time I saw you," he offers. "Much more alive."

"Thanks." Chloe sits down next to him and Dean takes her place in the doorway.

"I didn't mean to interrupt anything." Chuck looks between the two of them. "But I needed to talk to you."

"It's fine," Chloe assures him.

"So I just experienced something new. It seems that since I'm no longer in possession of the angels I've started…seeing things again." Chuck's leg starts shaking and Dean comes further in the room. Chuck gets up and starts pacing the length of the room annoyed. "I had a vision, while I was awake. Becky said it looked like seizure and it hurt like a mother fucker, so I'd really rather not repeat that particular feeling again."

"What did you see?" Dean cuts him off.

"The beginning of the end," Chuck admits.

"When?" Chloe stands up and starts pacing with him.

"Tomorrow, next week, I'm not really sure. I just know it's gonna happen soon."

"Should I go get everyone?" Dean asks walking to the door.

"No." Chloe pauses, even though she just promised Lois she wouldn't keep secrets from her anymore, she isn't ready to spring this on them just yet. Dean must understand because he closes the door and sits across from them. "Tell us everything you saw."

Chuck nods then takes a breath. "You got anything to drink?" Dean smiles and grabs the bottle of scotch off the nightstand that he and Chloe had been drinking before. Chuck takes it from him and starts to guzzle it down.

"You want a cup or a mug or….no, you're good," Dean says and Chuck stops, takes a breath, and then drinks again. Before they know it the bottle's completely empty. "Yeah this is gonna be great, I can tell," Dean says to Chloe sarcastically.

__

Nothing's gonna change my world,

Nothing's gonna change my world,

Nothing's gonna change my world,

Nothing's gonna change my world.

-The Beatles


	10. London Calling

London Calling

_London calling to the faraway towns_

_Now that war is declared and battle come down_

_London calling to the underworld_

_Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls._

**June 3, 2010 **  
**7:42 a.m. (British Summer Time)**  
**A Flat in Central London**

Joshua Moore looks around the living room in frustration. There's a nagging voice in the back of his head practically screaming at him, telling him there's something he's forgetting, something big, something important.

"You're going to be late." Beth, his long suffering girlfriend tells him with a hint of amusement in her voice. "Again," she adds, even though it doesn't need to be said.

"I know," Joshua says, absently as he zips up his hoodie. "But…"

"You've forgotten something?" Beth sets her coffee cup down on the table and looks up from the paper to smile at him properly.

Joshua chuckles under his breath. "Probably not but you never know." For all the times he's had this feeling of forgetfulness he's never actually forgotten anything.

"Right then, once more into the breach." Beth stands up and looks around surveying the apartment with him. When they first met she'd found it amusing that he double checked everything before leaving the apartment. Now that they've been together for a few years it's become less amusing but she takes it all in stride, finds it more endearing than anything else. She even helps him try to remember what he's forgotten. "Keys?" she asks and he digs them out of the pocket of his hoodie and waves the keys at her. "_I_ turned the kettle off. Did you brush your teeth?"

"Minty fresh." Joshua flashes her a dazzling white smile, a hint of his crooked front teeth poking through.

"Did you pick up your towels?" she asks and he nods. "Throw your dirty clothes in the hamper? Put your breakfast dishes in the sink?"

"Yes and yes." He nods frowning.

"I know, did you remember to put on clean underwear?" Her eyes are sparkling mischievously now.

"Now that you mention it, I can't recall putting on _any_ underwear this morning." He jokes with her.

Beth pretends to be shocked. "What if you get hit by bus? Think of the scandal, what would I do?"

"I don't know." Joshua laughs. "But I should hope you'd have more important things to worry about if I get hit by a bus than the fact that I died wearing no underwear. Like the fact that I _died_."

"Exactly, I won't be able to grieve properly knowing that the paramedics might have had a chance to save your life if they hadn't been too distracted by the fact that you were going commando to do their jobs." Joshua laughs at that and shakes his head.

"You do know that I actually have underwear on right?" he asks her and she smiles. "And also that I don't particularly plan on getting hit by a bus today or anytime in the near future."

"Honestly Joshua, no one plans these things." Beth rolls her eyes at him.

"Right then." Joshua slides his fingers through the tie of her robe and pulls her closer. "I promise I'll be extra careful and look both ways before crossing the road."

"Good man." She presses a soft kiss to his lips but he steps back before he does something that makes him really really late for work. Beth puts on her best pouty face and looks up at him through her eyelashes. "You could just skive off, stay here with me." She grabs the strings of his hoodie and twists them around her fingers.

Joshua bites his lip pretending to consider it. "Any other day, you know I would jump at the offer but I can't. We've got inventory at the shop. I am meeting you at the pub at 5:00 though."

Joshua gives the room one more cursory glance before giving up on finding whatever it is he thinks he's forgotten and leaves, locking the door behind him and taking the steps two at a time to get to the street. His boss is probably going to kill him but honestly he should be used to it by now. He makes it out into the street and contemplates walking, but by this time of morning the streets are already clogged with commuters and the multitude of buses flying past him are making the tube more and more inviting by the second.

A bright flash illuminates the sky mere seconds before a deafening boom crackles along the streets of central London and Joshua groans. He has no umbrella, it wasn't supposed to rain today. It's too late to go back now, so he just hopes he can make it to the tube before the rain starts.

He picks up his pace, his long hurried gait turning into a brisk jog, as the clouds above become more and more threatening and he can just see the relative safety of the London Underground when the skies open up. It doesn't take but another five steps to duck into the stairwell but he's already soaked.

He freezes suddenly, one foot hovering over the last step and people slam into his back, unprepared for the sudden stop. They simply ignore him, moving around him as he actually remembers something he's forgotten. He forgot to tell Beth that he loved her this morning. With a sigh he pushes forward, out of the entrance and onto the platform area, swiping his card and passing through the turnstile as he pulls his phone from his pocket. He types out a quick text, a hurried _"I love you"_ punctuated with a smile, hits send and waits for his train.

He wraps his arms tightly around his body and shivers slightly in the cold. It's nearing the end of winter now and if it hadn't been for the rain, the hoodie would have been enough protection against the slight chill in the air. He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket signaling an incoming text and he digs it out, his hands shaking in the cold. It's from Beth. A quick _"I love you too"_ with a few 'xoxo's thrown in for good measure.

He smiles and slips the phone back in his pocket. He's cold and uncomfortable and he's got a long train ride to look forward to, not to mention the fact that he'll have to brave the weather once more just to get to the shop, probably just as he's starting to dry off a bit and he thinks maybe he _should_ skive off today.

He looks back to the city street entrance and the rain is coming down the stairs sideways at this point. The train slides into an easy standstill in front of him and he contemplates one last time making a run for his flat, lighting a fire in the fireplace and spending the rest of the day and well into the night huddled up under the covers with Beth.

People make choices like that every day, yes or no, right or left, stay or go, bus or taxi, chicken or fish. We choose to go to work instead of playing hooky, we choose to do the right thing over the wrong thing, we make a million choices everyday and each one comes with its own set of consequences, its own set of outcomes, some good, some bad, some life altering, some hardly noticeable but all of them important.

However, Joshua's choice this morning is probably the single most important choice in the history of the universe and Joshua has no idea. It seems innocuous enough, get on the train, or go back home but it's so much more than that.

"Mate, you gettin' on?" A guy behind him gestures to the open train door, to the fact that Joshua is blocking everyone else from getting in and without thinking really he steps over the threshold, a mechanized voice telling him to _"Mind the Gap"._ He slides as far back as he can go, getting a solid footing next to a pole and holds on for the ride.

What Joshua doesn't know as the train pulls out of the station is that, in the months to come, this choice will seem like the worst decision he's ever made. He'll go over it and over it in his head, trace everything back to that moment on the Underground platform and wish with every fiber of his being that he could go back and change it. It will be the start of the most trying and dangerous experiences he could ever imagine having to face. It will be responsible for turning his world completely upside down. It will cost him the life of his girlfriend Beth.

What Joshua also doesn't know is that this choice will end up saving the world.

**June 3, 2010**  
**3:00 a.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)**  
**Camp Chitaqua, Virginia**

"It's been a long week and she said she didn't want to be disturbed." Oliver follows Chuck up the steps to Chloe's cabin.

"I wasn't planning on disturbing her." Chuck shakes his head at Oliver who's taken it upon himself to become Chloe's unofficial caretaker the past few weeks. He grabs for the handle of her cabin door and Oliver easily reaches over his head and holds it shut.

"I think waking her up at 3 in the morning will be pretty disturbing," Oliver counters and Chuck resists the urge to laugh, if only because Oliver seems too serious about the whole thing.

"Please, when was the last time you think Chloe actually slept?" Chuck scoffs and Oliver narrows his eyes, not appreciating the sarcastic tone. "Trust me, even if she is sleeping, she'll want me to wake her up for this."

Oliver wants to forcibly remove him from Chloe's porch but Chuck is their prophet and anything he might have to say could be seriously important. Then again, he could be here to complain about his cabin, again. While Oliver debates internally, Chuck pulls the door open a crack and slips under his arm. "Chloe!" Chuck walks over to her bedroom door and knocks a few times.

He didn't actually think he would be disturbing her until he hears a short, high pitched giggle, a whispered, "Stop it." And then a much louder and slightly annoyed, "What?"

Chuck looks over at Oliver sheepishly and rubs his head. "It's Chuck and Oliver. Something happened, or I _think_ something happened, or maybe something is happening. It's just…you've got to see this," he calls out before turning away from the door, a swirling feeling in the pit of his stomach that he's sure has everything to do with the dream he just awoke from. "Oracle, I need you to bring up a live news feed for me," he requests of the empty room.

_"Of course,"_ Oracle answers without question, her screens activating immediately. _"Any particular live news feed?"_

"CNN, FOX News, BBC, whatever you can access," Chuck snaps. Oracle's screens freeze and Chuck and Oliver both know it's not a software glitch. The silence in the room speaks volumes. "Oh I didn't…I didn't…I shouldn't have done that." Oliver resists the urge to smirk at the guy.  
_  
"No, you should not have,"_ Oracle agrees with him.

"I'm really sorry," Chuck says softly. "That was out of line."

_"It was."_

"What's up?" Chloe asks from behind Oliver. He turns around and smiles at her. Her hair is tousled and she's pulling a sweatshirt over her head to cover a thin camisole. "Is he apologizing to my computer?" Chloe squints at Chuck who looks as if he's minutes away from stroking the screen.

"He snapped at her."

"Ouch. Dean did that a few weeks ago and Oracle's still not speaking to him." Chloe winces.

As if he heard his name, Dean walks into the room. He's coming from Chloe's bedroom and he's buttoning up his pants. Oliver looks over at Chloe and notices the sweatshirt she's wearing is Dean's favorite and his jaw clenches.

Chloe can sense the change in Oliver the minute Dean stands beside her and figures it's best if this is hurried along. "Oracle, I'm sure that Chuck is sorry and it will never happen again, but I'm tired and-" She stops herself from saying _frustratingly unfulfilled_ and swallows. "It's 3 in the morning, so can we get this show on the road, please and thank you?"

Oracle lets out what sounds suspiciously like a sigh but fulfills Chuck's original request, instantaneously pulling up CNN, FOX News and BBC News, all on separate screens. "What am I looking at?" Chloe asks confused. It's morning in England, so BBC's airing a show called 'This Morning' with a chef doing a cooking demonstration. It's the middle of the night in America though so CNN has Larry King interviewing some pre-teen celebutant that Chloe is pretty sure is only famous for being famous. On FOX News' Greta Van Susteren is talking to some guy about Area 51. "What's going on? Are the alien's invading?" She looks around the room. "Where's Zod? I'm gonna kick his ass. I really can't deal with aliens on top of everything else right now, I can't do it."

"No, it's not that, well I assume he's not…I've actually been meaning to talk to you about the Kandorians, I've got some concerns..." Chuck stops when he sees Chloe's tired smile, she's joking. "Right, maybe later." He turns back to the screens. "Watch the tickers." He mumbles squinting up at BBC News. "There, did you see it?"

"I saw it." Chloe nods slowly and turns to Dean who seems to be staring at the same place she was. "We're gonna need Sammy and Cass." Dean nods.

"I'm sorry did I miss something?" Oliver looks between them all confused.

"Oracle, can you rewind and slow it down." Oracle ignores Chuck and it scrolls on by again.

"Oracle." Chloe says annoyed. "Rewind and slow it down." She gathers up her hair and ties it into a ponytail at the back of her head. Oracle listens to Chloe and she points at the text before sitting down and commandeering the remaining screens. "There."

Oliver squints and walks closer. "Multiple random attacks reported early this morning around London's city center. All cases appear the same. Victims report being cornered and having their forearms sliced with a knife. The assailants then dropped something into the open wound and let the victims go free," he reads aloud. "Sorry, I still don't know what's going on."

"It's starting," Chloe says as an inexplicable chill spreads through her body.

"I'll go get the others." Dean says, laying a soft hand on the nape of her neck, his fingers lingering just a bit too long as he walks away.

Oliver turns to Chloe and opens his mouth. "You want to stop for a second, think hard and decide if right now is really the time to talk about this."

Oliver closes his mouth instantly and Chloe allows herself a small victorious smile at having dodged that conversation. "Another time then," Oliver offers before looking back at the screens and she sighs, she knew it wasn't going to be that easy.

**June 3, 2010**  
**11:00 a.m. (BST)**  
**Any Amount of Books, Central London**

Joshua sits on the floor of the shop. He's somehow managed to build a wall around himself out of stacks of books, effectively trapping himself in place. He's grateful at the moment that the shop is closed for inventory because should a customer happen to stroll in, he's not sure he could make his way out gracefully. "Incoming," is shouted from somewhere above him and he barely has enough time to drop his scanner gun and cover his head with his arms before he hears the thump of three very large books hitting the ground right next to him, so close that the vibrations shake the stacks of books around him.

"Thanks Harry." Joshua looks up and finds his boss smirking down at him from the top of the rolling ladder, a short distance away. "I appreciate you trying hard to miss me that time."

"I was actually trying to hit you." Harry smirks, then pushes off the side of the book shelf sending the ladder rolling toward Joshua. He grabs onto the shelf at the last second stopping the ladder but he's not quick enough and he slams into Joshua's stacks of books, sending them crashing to the ground. "Result!" Harry smiles and jumps off the ladder pumping his fists in the air.

"Cheers." Joshua groans in annoyance, pulling himself to his feet. "I had those organized you know. I had a system, a very intricate system and you just destroyed and hour's worth of work."

"I'm supposed to be the boss here, the uptight one." Harry claps Joshua on the back. "Anyway, you know how inventory's supposed to go, we're not even into hour five yet. Which reminds me, tea break."

"Yes, well I was hoping this time we could avoid mucking around for ten hours, then scrambling to get everything finished before we collapsed in exhaustion, just in time to open for the day tomorrow." Joshua moves over to pick up the books Harry tossed from the top shelf. He looks and shakes his head. "Harry, this copy of _Through the Looking Glass_ is a first edition."

"Really?" Harry looks up intrigued.

"Yes." Joshua scoops up all the books. "The _Hobbit, Catcher in the Rye, Murder on the Orient Express_…they're all first editions."

"Huh." Harry stuffs a Jaffa Cake into his mouth.

"The Agatha Christie's worth over 2,000 pounds alone." Joshua gingerly sets the books on the counter.

"What do you know." Harry swallows with a smile. "Guess I should rethink putting them on the Pound cart out front then huh?"

"Yeah." Joshua shakes his head and pours himself a cup of tea. "You might reconsider that one."

"I knew I kept you around for something," Harry said. "Jaffa Cake?"

"Thanks." Joshua grabs one and takes a small bite. He can see Harry out of the corner of his eye scratching his forearm. "Leave it," Joshua warns him with a tone that relays the fact he's been saying this particular warning all morning. "If you don't, it's going to scar."

"The ladies dig scars." Harry counters. "And it itches."

"I'm sure it does." Joshua chuckles and shakes his head, as Harry tries to scratch his wound around the bandage. "So come on seriously, someone just jumped you on the street this morning, cut you open and walked away?"

"That's what happened." Harry shrugs giving up and pulling the bandage off, tossing it in the trash. It's stopped bleeding but it's red and inflamed. He looks down at it, intently scratching at it with fervor.

"It's gonna get infected," Joshua warns him. "There's probably all kinds of mold and who knows what else in these old books." He pushes himself off the counter and heads back to his now scattered piles of books. "Come on Harry, I promised Beth I'd meet her at the pub at five, I'd like to not have to come back here tonight to finish this."

Harry looks up at the back of Joshua's head and smiles a bit manically. "Oh trust me, I don't think you'll have to worry about that." He reaches behind the cash register area and grabs the letter opener. He presses it down on the cut on his arm re-opening it, starting the bleeding again before jumping down and walking toward Joshua. "Inventory is going to be the least of your worries."

**June 3, 2010**  
**6:30 a.m. (EDT)**  
**Camp Chitaqua, Virginia**

_"We've been getting reports from hospitals around the city of a sudden epidemic of what appears to be a rabies outbreak. Many of the patient's presented with high fever, increased heart rate, severe aggression and paranoia and many of them appear to be victims of the attacks we reported earlier." A reporter speaks into the camera._

_"So is there any indication that the attacks and the illness are connected?" Another reporter asks. _

_"There's nothing to indicate that but the police are looking into the possibility." The first reporter nods. _

"Nothing to indicate?" Chloe snorts as she types. "No, of course not. How could there possibly be any connection between people getting sliced open and having someone drip a foreign substance into their blood stream and them showing up three hours later with rabies like symptoms?"

"They're probably trying to not cause a panic." Sam offers over his shoulder.

"Get your feet off my console." Chloe smacks his head as she stands up and walks past him to the printer. "And they're British. The British don't panic. _ Keep Calm and Carry On_ and all that," she says absently, as she flips through a few pages before handing them off to Dean behind her. "No, I think they honestly don't see the connection."

"What are those?" Sam stands up and looks at the papers in Dean's hand.

"The police reports from the attacks this morning." Dean passes a few over for him to look at.

"Are we sure this is, what did you call it, Croatian?" Bart asks yawning. "Your demon virus thing?"

"It's not _my_ demon virus." Dean glares at him. "And we knew it would be phase one. We just thought it would be, you know, here."

"How did you know this would be phase one?" Clark asks and Oliver turns to Chloe, he'd like to hear this too.

Chloe looks up to find everyone staring at her expectantly. Gradually, throughout the morning as they woke up, they made their way to Chloe's cabin and were informed about what was going on. "Chuck had a vision." Chloe tries to brush off the fact that she had previous knowledge of this but it doesn't get past anyone.

"When did Chuck have this vision ?" Lois asks and the quiet anger in her voice actually makes Chloe swallow.

"A few weeks ago." Dean answers for Chloe.

"A few _weeks_ ago?" Lois nods. "And this wasn't something you thought we needed to know?"

"We didn't have a lot of information to go on. We didn't have a definitive time or even a definitive place so no, this wasn't something I thought you needed to know," Chloe tells her, unapologetic. She knows that Lois is angry and hurt but Chloe honestly doesn't feel as if she's done anything wrong in this situation and Lois is just going to have to deal with it.

"This is just a test." Castiel is still staring at the screen, he hasn't looked away once since Chloe called him in. "London is a densely populated area. They'll want to see how fast it can spread. They've probably also tested it in a few less urban area to gauge infection rate in the country as well."

"And then what?" Oliver steps forward. "Onto us?"

Castiel turns around and looks at Oliver. "Yes, then onto us."

"Do we know when this is going to happen?" he asks with raised eyebrows. Chloe looks over to Chuck.

"Thursday after next at 8:00 a.m." Chuck informs him.

"Oh." Oliver seems slightly off put by the fact that he got a straight honest answer for once, it satisfies him though.

"Did you know about this?" Dean whispers to Chloe out of the corner of his mouth.

"Uh, no I did not." Chloe rubs her eyes. "I see we're going to have to have a talk with Chuck about communication."

"That gives us what two weeks, a little less?" Dean asks and Chloe curses under her breath.

"OK." She walks into the middle of the room. "We've got a lot of work to do and very little time in which to do it, so I'm really going to need everyone on board here." She steals a glance at Lois who thankfully knows that what's going on is more important that any indignant anger she might be feeling. Chloe takes a deep breath and looks around the room. "Victor, I need you and A-" She stops herself before she finishes AC's name but everyone knows. "And Bart to take a few of the back-up monitors and set them up in the Mess, I want whatever live feed we can get on in there. Everyone should be up by now and if they're not, wake them up and get them all to the Mess Hall."

"Sure." Victor motions Bart to the door to go get the monitor's from the storage shed.

"Jo, your mom's not gonna be prepared for everyone all at once, so assign her some helpers for breakfast this morning and then tell her I need a complete inventory of all her supplies." Jo clutches her ever present clipboard to her chest and walks out of the cabin.

"I don't think we're nearly as prepared for this as I hoped we'd be so…Sammy, we're going to need to make some supply runs, we're not going to have time to order things. We need them and we need them now." Sam nods. "After I meet with Ellen and Bobby, and get their lists, I'll need you to take point on that. Put together a team of people you can trust, people who won't ask too many questions," she says pointedly.

"So we're keeping this from everyone else?" Lois asks. "This is just another one of those things that you think they don't need to know?" Chloe closes her eyes, willing herself not to snap at her cousin.

"Breath in." Dean whispers in her ear from behind her and slides a cup of coffee in her hand. Chloe breathes deep, curls her fingers around the mug and nods slightly.

"In about two hours, there isn't going to be any way to keep anything from anyone. What I'm trying to do is control the information until I have all the facts." Chloe says calmly.

"You control the information, so you can control the situation." Lois accuses her.

"Yes." Chloe answers. "Because that's my job. Because I need those people out there to be worried about doing what I tell them to do today and not to be worried about something that's not even gonna happen for another two weeks."

"What do you need me to do?" Lois asks after a minute.

"I need an inventory of everything else- toiletries, medical supplies, you can get a list of what we should have from Jo and check that against what we actually have." Lois nods stiffly and walks out.

"Clark, can I have a word?" she asks. "Oliver, I'd like you to stay too." Oliver looks confused but pleased to be included. "Chuck, Sammy, why don't you guys head on over to breakfast."

"Sure." Sam nods dragging Chuck out of the cabin and closing the door after them.

"What's up?" Clark asks sitting down. He has the vaguest feeling that this is like when the principle calls you into his office but he knows he's done nothing wrong.

"It's about the Kandorians." Chloe bites her lip and glances at Dean one last time before sitting down herself. "You need to give them their powers."

Clark stares at Chloe for a minute as if she's grown a second head. "Didn't we spend two years and a lot of time and energy making sure they didn't get powers?"

"That was a long time ago, things have changed." Chloe tells him. "The situation's changed. We were so easily overpowered in Vegas. They're our strongest, best trained warriors and we have the ability to make them better, make them stronger. We can use them."

"Right. Now _you_ need them," Clark says angrily. "Now _you_ can use them so it's OK?"

"Yes." Chloe says not denying anything he accuses her of. "We're fighting against angels and demons with almost limitless powers, how can we hope to compete with that? _We_ can't, but you can and with powers, the Kandorians can too."

Clark turns to Oliver who is staring at Chloe impassively. "Did you know about this?"

"No." Oliver says.

"And?" Clark pushes.

Oliver turns away from Chloe and looks at Clark. "I think she's right." He says swallowing hard. "I don't like it any more than you, probably a lot less than you but she's right. Our casualty rate could have been much lower if we'd had more power on our side."

"And what about when they turn on us? Cause you've been telling me that's what they'll do. What if I give them powers and they turn on us and we're right back where we started?"

"That's their choice." Chloe shrugs. "I can't say that they won't turn on us. They might- with Zod leading them, they probably will. But they might not, and if we give them their powers, we've got an edge. And I'll take whatever edge I can get right now."

"Damn the consequences?" Clark glares at her.

"Yes," Chloe says.

Clark takes a deep breath and then nods almost imperceptibly. He gets up and walks to the door, pausing before he leaves and looks at her one last time. "I do this and it's on you."

Chloe winces as the door slams shut behind him. "It always is," Chloe says shaking her head. Oliver gets up and heads for the door too. "Thanks," Chloe offers as an afterthought but he doesn't answer. The room is eerily quiet as the door closes behind him.

**June 3, 2010**  
**12:45 p.m. (BST)**  
**Any Amount of Books, Central London**

Joshua rubs the back of his neck and lets out a breath. "He came at you with a letter opener?" PC Davidson raises his eyebrow as he writes something in his notebook.

"He did." Joshua says still confused by the whole thing.

"And he's locked in the storeroom now?" Davidson looks up. "How'd you manage that one?"

"I knocked him out and dragged him back there." Joshua says sheepishly. "I didn't want to hurt him, just stop him hurting me."  
"What did you knock him out with?" Davidson looks around the shop.

"A hard back copy of Moby Dick." Joshua smiles.

Davidson snorts. "Melville finally good for something then?" He closes his book and puts it in his back pocket. "I was forced to read it in my A-Levels."

"Didn't like it?" Joshua asks.

"Well I became a copper instead of an English professor, what's that tell you?" He pats Joshua on the back. "Look, you did the right thing you know."

"Everything was normal and then he just sort of went mad. I mean ten seconds before we were joking around and eating Jaffa Cakes and then he's attacking me."

"He's got an open wound." Another PC pokes his head around the corner.

"Awake?" Davidson asks.

"Still out cold." The PC shakes his head.

"Good, easier to get him to quarantine." Davidson looks over at Joshua and gives him a once over. "You sure he didn't touch you? Cut you or bleed on you anywhere?"

"I'm sure." Joshua nods. "Why what's going on? Why's he got to be quarantined?" He watches the other PC drag the unconscious Harry out of the shop.

"There's something going 'round." Davidson tells Joshua. "A virus or something. It's a bit like rabies, makes the infected go off their heads. They're all over the city too, emergency services' has been swamped with the calls to the station. Between you and me, son, they'll probably quarantine the whole of the city center before the night's up."

"He was trying to infect me?" Joshua catches on.

"It's part of the virus, makes the infected want to pass it on or something." Davidson sighs. "You got lucky here. You should get any family in the area and clear out. Trust me, that's what I would do, if I could."

"Thank you, sir." Joshua nods as the PC's leave the shop. "I'll do that." He grabs his hoodie and pulls it on, leaving the shop immediately. He's in the process of locking the door when a large brick sails past his head and smashes through the street window. Joshua looks back down to his keys and then over at a crazed looking woman whom PC Davidson is working very hard to subdue. He forgets the door and hurries down the street, the only thought in his head is getting Beth and getting out of London.

It takes him longer than he anticipated to get home because the tube apparently isn't running anymore. It was shut down in an attempt to keep people out of the Underground. When he opens the door to their flat he's already out of breath from the trip over and if he had any doubt about what he was doing, it was squashed when he saw no less than four mini riots break out on his way home.

"Beth!" he calls out hurrying into the bedroom. "Grab some clothes and whatever you absolutely have to have and do it quick." Joshua pulls his own bag out from under the bed and starts filling it with jeans, underwear and t-shirts. "Beth, did you hear me? We've got to get out of town and we've got to leave now. Call your mum in the country; see if we can stay with her for a while. I'm assuming the country's safe." He pauses. "We'll figure it out when we get there." He still receives no answer but he saw her bag by the front door so he knows she in the flat. "Beth?"

"I'm in the bathroom," she calls out to him.

He walks across the room and opens the bathroom door to find her sitting on the tiled floor. "Beth?" He frowns and crouches down in front of her. "Are you okay?"

"No." She shakes her head and wipes the fresh tears from her eyes. "Jenna came over, we were going to go get mani-pedis. We were joking around, having fun then she just jumped on me." Beth unwraps the towel from around arm and Joshua lets out a breath when he sees the large gash.

"Oh God Beth," Joshua breathes out, his chest tight. "Did she bleed on you? Tell me she didn't bleed on you."

Beth looks up confused. "I think she did," she says hoarsely. "Her arm was bleeding from her own cut and she…I think she…" Joshua closes his eyes and just breathes for a few seconds. "What?"

He opens his eyes again and looks at her sadly. He reaches out and cradles her face in his hands and leans in to kiss her softly. "I'm so sorry." He stands up and walks to the door slowly as she stares at him in confusion.

"Sorry about what?" Beth whispers. He looks at her one last time then closes the door, flipping the lock on the side and releasing the door knob as if it's burned him. They've complained to the landlord a hundred times since moving in to change the lock around, they've accidentally locked themselves in the bathroom more times then they care to admit but at this moment Joshua's never been more happy to have a lazy landlord. "Joshua?" Beth calls out to him. He hears her jiggling the door knob on her side of the bathroom. "Joshua why did you lock the door?"

"You're sick Beth."

"I'm not," she argues. "I'm injured, I'm not sick."

"You're sick," Joshua corrects her. "You just don't know it yet, and maybe you're not sick yet but you will be."

"I don't understand." Her voice is low and desperate and it breaks Joshua's heart.

"Jenna infected you with something. It's going around the city. Harry attacked me earlier, I barely got away."

"I'm not sick." Beth counters. "I can't be sick, I feel fine. Let me out."

"I can't do that." Joshua shakes his head and splays his hand on the wood of the door. "I'm sorry." He hears Beth start to cry again and forces his own tears back. "I'm going to get you some help. I'll find someone who can help you, but it's a little crazy out there right now, I'm gonna have to wait until it dies down. You just have to hold on okay, can you do that for me, can you hold on?"

"Yeah." Beth answers. "I can hold on."

"Good." Joshua leans his forehead against the door and sighs. He turns around and allows himself to sink to the floor, bringing his knees up to his chest.

"Joshua?" Beth whispers. "I'm going to be okay, right?"

"I promise," Joshua chokes on his words. "I promise."

"Okay," Beth says and then she doesn't say anything for two more hours.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Joshua." He jerks awake at the sound of Beth's voice and realizes he somehow fell asleep leaning against the bathroom door. "Joshua." Beth calls out to him again in a sort of sing/song voice. "Open the door, Joshua."

"Beth?" Joshua stretches rubbing his neck. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Beth says and something in her voice sounds wrong. It reminds him of how Harry's voice had changed just before he attacked him. "I feel great actually. Open the door."

"I can't Beth, you know that. I'll go get some help though. I'll go check and see if it's died down any out there." Joshua pulls himself to his feet and winces as the sounds of the city filter through the bedroom window. He hears car alarms, screaming and the sounds of glass breaking.

"It's fine Joshua, I don't need any help. I'm fine, I'm great, just let me out." Beth offers him.

"I can't." Joshua shakes his head.

"Open the damn door," she screams, slamming her hands against the wood. Joshua jumps back.

"You're..." Joshua can't finish the sentence, can't think long enough to finish the sentence.

"I'm fine Joshua, and you can be fine too if you just let me out." Beth offers.

"No." Joshua whispers shaking his head.

"Let me out," she screams again and he hears the sound of the mirror breaking.

**June 3, 2010**  
**3:00 p.m. (EDT)**  
**Camp Chitaqua, Viriginia**

_"I repeat, twelve hours ago, some sort of…outbreak began in central London. It appears to initially present as a mutated strain of rabies…" _

The reporter on the screen is obviously upset. Chloe can see her hands shaking as she holds the pages in front of her, and she reads the newest update. Chloe glances around at the mess hall, everyone is being eerily quiet, their eyes glued to the screen. Their eyes have been glued to the screen for the majority of the day, watching the events unfold.

_"At this time we don't know what it is, we don't know how it's transmitted but we do know that it's spreading fast and it's dangerous. We're asking all citizens to stay indoors, wherever you are just stay there. Emergency services throughout the city are ready and able to offer assistance. If you are on the streets, please seek immediate shelter." _

"It happened so fast." Oliver stares at the screen.

"It wasn't supposed to." Castiel tells them. "It was supposed to spread slowly. The purpose of the virus is to create foot soldiers, expendable bodies to fight on the side of the demons. But the infected were to be more like sleeper cells, hiding in plain sight, slowly infecting others until before you knew it, everyone in the country was one of them."

"What went wrong?" Chloe asks him.

"You." Castiel smiles. "Humans are rather complex creatures. For one species, you're physiology changes dramatically from one person to the next. None of their previous tests used a large enough sampling for them anticipate this."

"Anticipate what?" Oliver asks.

"For a little under half of the population, the virus seems to be having an adverse effect." Castiel explains. "Normally, once you're infected there is a three hour incubation period until you're completely enthralled. The demon blood gives you heightened strength and at that point you want nothing more than to infect as many others as possible, but other than that you're fine. You can go about your day as normally as you used to and no one is any wiser."

"For the others, once that three hour incubation period is over, something happens, something changes in them and they become a violent, practically insane shell of the person they used to be. Add to that the increased strength and the overwhelming desire to infect as many people as you can and nothing can stop them."

"Well that's just fantastic." Dean snorts.

_"Hold on I'm getting…" The reporter squints as she attempts to listen and relate all the information at once. "There are reports coming in now that it's not just London. We're getting…they're saying it's spread to the country. Essex, Somerset…reports are coming in from everywhere now, Wales, Ireland…oh God, the mainland." A map is pulled up on a split screen next to her. Red dots start popping up on the map as she talks. "France and Germany…" _

The reporter continues to name places but Chloe tunes her out because she knows that Lois just heard the same thing she did. France and Germany. Chloe turns to her cousin to find Lois staring at her, her eyes scared, her mouth half open in a plea she can't seem to vocalize. "Clark." Chloe gets his attention and motions for him to follow her.

She slips out of the Mess Hall and heads back to her cabin. She knows without even looking that Dean, Sam, Cass, and Oliver are hot on her heels. Clark is following behind them and Lois is following Clark. Chloe already has a map printed and is holding it out to Clark by the time everyone else gets there.

"What's this?" he asks confused.

"Directions to Lucy's studio apartment, I also gave you her college address if she's not there," Chloe says and turns to Lois who looks slightly more relieved. "You want him to bring her back here?" Lois nods.

"You're dad?" Clark asks suddenly. "He's in Paris too." Chloe pauses, hardly believing that she almost forgot about him. She grabs the map from Clark and writes down her dad's address quickly before handing it back.

"Thanks." Chloe breathes out and he nods before disappearing. 

"Who is Lucy?" Dean asks Chloe.

"Lois' sister." Chloe sits back down in front of her monitors and starts typing again. "She's studying at a boarding school in France."

"Oh." Dean nods at Lois. He understands the ever present concern for siblings.

"My Dad…" Lois steps forward.

"He's still stationed in Germany. I know, I'm working on it." Chloe's fingers never stop typing.

"The General's in Stuttgart, right? It was on the map, they've been hit." Oliver leans back in his chair. "No way you're getting through to him. The phone lines are going to be completely jammed."

"Oh ye of little faith." Chloe smiles over her shoulder at him. "Oracle, please get me a clear line to the U.S. Army Airfield in Stuttgart."

"No fair." Oliver protests. "That's cheating."

Chloe just smiles wider as Oracle shifts calls all over the world, bouncing them from satellite to satellite, freeing up a channel for Chloe as a number starts to dial over the speakers, it rings twice and man answers. "General Lane."

"Dad." Lois steps forward before Chloe has a chance to say anything.

"Lois, I've been trying to get through to you…how did you-" The connection is perfectly clear and Chloe offers a Oliver a satisfied smirk.

"Chloe," Lois tells him and there is a pause on the line.

"Of course," the General says, relief in his voice. "I assume that once again reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated?"

"It's been known to happen." Chloe shrugs speaking for the first time.

"To you more than most," the General points out.

"Well, what can I say, I like to live dangerously." Chloe smiles.

"I'm glad you called and I'm glad to hear you're safe but in case you don't have CNN wherever you're hiding, all hell broke loose over here this morning," he tells her.

"You don't know the half of it," Chloe mumbles under her breath. "That's why I'm calling."

There's another lengthy pause on his end of the line and then all the background noise fades slowly as the General walks into a more private room. "This isn't a terrorist attack is it?" That's what all the news stations have been theorizing, that it's some sort of biological attack.

"No." Chloe answers truthfully.

"What do you know about it?" he asks her. "Is this something from Smallville?"

"Not exactly." Chloe winces. Over the years, she's come to learn that the General knows much more about meteor rocks, the meteor infected and metahumans, than Chloe would have liked. "It's something different."

"But you're involved?" His tone is more resigned than surprised.

"Looks that way." Chloe sighs.

"What can you tell me about this then?" He sounds like he's sitting down which Chloe thinks is probably a good thing.

"It's spread by blood." Chloe relates to him what Dean told her. "We know blood to blood works best but there's no proof that ingestion isn't also a viable transfer method. Blood to skin isn't that much of a danger but I'd recommend not to test that theory if at all possible. The incubation time is only about three hours and as of right now, there's no cure."

"Great." The General sounds even less than enthusiastic with this new information.

"But we're working on it." Chloe tries to somehow soften the blow.

"How far along are you with your research?" the General asks.

"It's still in the initial stages," Chloe admits reluctantly. "We'll call you with any information as soon as we have it."

"Thanks, I don't…thanks." The General sounds very weary and Chloe hates that. She sees Clark slip back into the room and nod at her.

"Uncle Sam, we've got Lucy. She's safe, she's here with us." Chloe smiles as she hears him let out a relieved breath.

He doesn't ask her how, he doesn't care. "Thank God, I couldn't get through to her." There's a knock at the door and he muffles the phone for a minute. "I've got to go, there's a lot of work to do."

"Be careful please," Chloe asks him.

"You too. Chloe…take care of my girls." He signs off and Chloe has a suspicious felling that there was something else he wanted to say to her but couldn't bring himself to vocalize it.

"Lucy's fine, a little confused," Clark tells Lois and she throws her arm around his neck and hugs him tight.

"I'll go talk to her." Lois walks out. Chloe doesn't envy her having to explain all this to Lucy. God is missing, apocalypse now, demonic virus, plus the fact that Clark is an alien from outer space. Chloe spares a second to envy Lucy though- spoiled, annoying, naïve Lucy and her last few minutes of innocence. She turns her attention to Clark and raises her eyebrows.

"It was bad, there were riots everywhere, everyone was fighting with everyone else…" Clark shakes his head.

"My dad?" Chloe asks hesitantly.

"He's fine." Clark says, not realizing that the fact that he'd shown up without Gabe might have looked as if something had happened. "He was at Lucy's actually, trying to get her to a shelter." Chloe smiles. "I explained everything, I tried to get him to come but…he said he could do more good where he was, he said he could help more people there."

"Oh." Chloe frowns.

"Said to tell you he loved you." Clark smiles sadly at her. "That he was glad you weren't dead and that he figured if anyone was on top of this you were."

"Thanks." Chloe says, a lump forming in her throat. 

"We're working on it?" Sam asks Chloe breaking the tension and Chloe turns around confused.

"Huh?" she asks him.

"You told the General we were working on a cure," Dean reminds her.

"Well, we are."

"Since when?" Oliver laughs.

"Since now," Chloe tells him, all business. "Get Emil and get him here. He said he wanted to come down here until the last possible second and I've been patient about that but this is the last possible second. I want him in a fully functioning lab by tomorrow. Get whatever he needs."

"How exactly am I supposed to do that?" Oliver stands up already pulling out his phone to make the calls he needs to make.

"I don't know, I don't care, just get it done. I want to be able to have something to tell the General by this time tomorrow." Chloe tells him and turns away, no doubt in her mind that he'll have a lab set up by the end of the day. Her attention is now focused on Clark.

"We can't wait any longer." Chloe tells him and Clark's expression turns stony.

"If you don't mind my asking, how exactly are we giving the Kandorians their powers back?" Oliver looks between Chloe and Clark. "I'm mean short of building a solar tower and turning our sun red?"

Dean and Sam turn to Chloe with their eyebrows raised. "Nothing so dramatic I assure you." Chloe brushes off Oliver's intended joke. "Oracle figured it out actually."

"_I have worked through various scenarios, made a multitude of calculations based on all of the information available in my memory banks, and after analyzing a sample of Kandorian DNA and comparing it with a sample of Kryptonian DNA the answer is obvious. When Jor-El exposed the Kandorian's DNA to blue Kryptonite he made them incapable of absorbing our yellow sun's radiation as Clark does, however due to the potent nature of Clarks blood, I surmise that a simple transfusion will restore the Kandorian's DNA to it's original state." _Oracle explains.

"A simple transfusion?" Clark asks.

"One or two drops of your blood in each Kandorian should do the trick." Chloe explains. "It's actually very easy."

"But no less painful," Clark mumbles under his breath and Chloe tries to brush him off but he holds up his hand. "Don't Chloe. You know what you have to do, you have to poison me in the most excruciating way possible just to extract some of my blood. If you want do this, own it."

"You're right." Chloe lets out a breath. "Do you want me to apologize?"

"Do you want to apologize?" Clark narrows his eyes at her. "Do you think you need to apologize?"

"No," Chloe answers too quickly for Clark's taste.

"Then don't bother," Clark tells her. "And where exactly are we going to find liquid kryptonite on such short notice?" He sits down.

"I've got that taken care of," Chloe says.

Clark studies her for a second and Oliver hangs up the phone to watch what happens. "You already have some? Of course you do, I'm sure you've got a whole stash of kryptonite hidden somewhere safe, right?"

Chloe nods once. "Right."

"Not for you." Oliver interjects, implicating himself in the hoarding of the kryptonite but in an attempt to lessen the blame on Chloe. "It was never for you, it was a just in case…"

"Just in case the Kandorians somehow got a hold of Kryptonian powers and decided to take over the planet, you had a stockpile ready to fight them," Clark finishes for Oliver. "It was nice of you to try and justify this but don't you realize that just makes my faith in this plan of yours even thinner?"

"Don't have faith in the plan then," Chloe interrupts his speech annoyed. "Have faith in me." He looks at her skeptically. "I'm asking you for once to have the kind of faith in me that you've always expected me to have in you."

This humbles him slightly and he offers her a nod. She turns to Bart who stands at attention. "There is a lead box in the bottom drawer of Oliver's desk back at the Clock Tower in Metropolis. You've still got the elevator code?" Bart nods numbly.

**June 3, 2010**  
**9:30 p.m. (BST)**  
**Central London **

Joshua walks numbly out of the door of his complex and onto the street. There are people all over, fighting with each other, breaking shop windows, vandalizing cars. They seem to ignore Joshua for the most part as he starts down the street, hands inside the pockets of his hoodie, his bag slung over his shoulder.

He doesn't know where he's going, he just knows he's got to go somewhere else. He stops at the corner and looks both ways, he almost turns left but at the last second he sees the pub on the corner and remembers earlier that day reminding Beth they were going to meet there later. He knows it was just that morning but it feels like a lifetime ago. He heads for the pub. If he ever needed a drink, now's the time. He doesn't even know if they're open but he grabs the door handle and pulls.

When he walks in, his arms are immediately grabbed and twisted behind his back. "Hey!" he protests loudly.

"Joshua?" A familiar voice calls from the darkness and a mop of curly hair walks toward him. He knows that hair, it's Jeremy, a guy who lives two flights and three doors down from him. They run into each other now and then in the stairwell and he spent a few hours at Jeremy's New Years Party last year with Beth.

"Jeremy?" he asks. "What's going on?"

"You're covered in blood mate." Jeremy points to the front of Joshua's hoodie, indicating the deeper red stain that spreads across the front. "We just need to make sure you're not, you know infected."

Joshua nods numbly as the two guys holding his arms pull up his sleeves and examine his skin. "No open wounds." One of the guys say and they release him.

"Where's the blood from then?" Jeremy asks.

"It's…not mine." Joshua pulls the sleeves back down on his arm and shivers. "It's Beth's."

"Oh." Jeremy winces. "So then she's…"

"Yeah." Joshua nods.

"Bet you could use a drink." Jeremy claps him on the back and walks over to the bar, grabbing a bottle. He looks at the cups, thinks better of it and just slides the whole bottle to Joshua.

"Cheers." Joshua walks over and grabs it. He doesn't know what it is and he doesn't care, he just opens the bottle and gulps it down. It burns his throat and he coughs.

Jeremy smiles sadly and walks around the bar nodding to the two guys at the door who resume their guard. "Come on," Jeremy offers. "You can take the bottle with you."

Joshua does just that. He grabs the bottle in one hand and his bag in the other and follows Jeremy to the back of the bar and down some steps to into the basement.

"We've got our own little bunker down here." Jeremy explains to Joshua. "The two upstairs are Max and Ethan, some blokes I go to school with. They were at my place for a study group of all things, when it all went bloody insane." Jeremy shrugs. "We found Ms. Harden 3b and the Browns, Robbie and Amelia, 5a holed up in the laundry room." He nods to an old lady and a young couple in the corner that Joshua recognizes, they offer him a weak wave. "We tried to get out but only made it so far you know. Had to take shelter. You can drop your stuff here. Look, us blokes are taking shifts watching the doors, can you-"

"Sure, just let me know when." Joshua offers.

"Cheers." Jeremy nods. "There's a bit of food in the kitchens upstairs but we're trying to ration it just in case."

"You expect to be here long?"

"As long as this bugger lasts I s'pose," Jeremy says. "A few days at least." Joshua drops bag and nods. "Look, Beth was…I locked myself out once and she made me tea. She was a good one."

"She was." Joshua nods and takes another swig from the bottle. "I'm just gonna…" He motions to his stuff and Jeremy gets the hint.

"Sure mate, I'll come get you when it's your turn at the door." Jeremy walks back up the stairs.

**June 3, 2010**  
**4:30 p.m. (EDT)**  
**Camp Chitaqua, Virginia**

"BBC please Oracle." Chloe stares at the screen and Dean walks up behind her.

_"Riots have now broken out and it's unsure who is leading them, the infected or the general population. We here at the Broadcasting House have had to barricade ourselves inside the station." There is a loud banging and the reporter winces. "We're not sure how long we'll be able to broadcast." _

They cut away to show a live view of London from what's likely a traffic camera. Smoke is rising into the air from various locations around the city. "London is burning." Dean stares.

There's a knock at the door and Chloe turns to see Bart standing there holding a small box in his hands with trepidation. "Well, I live by the river." Chloe says walking to the door and taking the box from Bart without a word.

"What does that mean?" Cass asks watching her go.

"We really need to broaden your musical horizons." Dean shakes his head at the angel and follows Chloe out of the cabin.

**June 3, 2010**  
**11:00 p.m. (BST) Pub in Central London**  
**6:00 p.m. (EDT) Camp Chitaqua, Virginia**

Max nudges Joshua's shoulder to wake him up. He jerks to his feet as the day's events come crashing back to him and he puts his hands up in defense. "It's just me." Max steps back. Joshua lets his breathing get back under control and sighs. "You're turn on watch." Max holds a gun out to him and Joshua takes it hesitantly.

"Where'd you get this?"

"Found it behind the bar." Max settles into a small pallet in the corner. "Look the crazy ones don't bother going into buildings and it's easy to spot the others well cause most of 'em are sportin' some bloody great hole someplace, right. It's a piece of cake." He leans against the wall and closes his eyes.

"Yeah, cake." Joshua looks longingly at the bottle on the ground next to his bag and decides it's probably better to not be smashed while he's the only thing keeping them all from getting lynched by the infected.

"I'll take the gun if you want." Robbie stands and stretches, making sure not to disturb Amelia. Joshua hands it over more than willingly and Robbie slips it in his belt before walking up the steps.

**::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

Chloe steps into Lois and Clark's cabin and smiles at Lucy who's sitting on the edge of the bed looking slightly shell shocked. "Hey Lucy."

"Hey Chlo." Lucy's smiling even if it is a bit watery.

"You doing okay?" Chloe tries to hide the box behind her back as Lois stretches to see it. Dean walks into the cabin behind Chloe and Lucy immediately sits up straighter and wipes her face.

"Better now but I think it's going to take a while for it all to…you know, sink in." Lucy says all of this to Dean even though Chloe was the one who asked and this is how she knows her little cousin is going to be okay.

"Look, why don't you and Lois head on over to the Mess Hall. Hidden in a very very secret place is a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream. Lois knows where. I'm sure that will go a long way to helping it all sink in." Lois looks skeptically at Chloe, she knows that her cousin's trying to get her out of the room but Lucy looks at her so hopefully that she can't say no.

"Uncle Gabe," Lucy says to Chloe, "he came for me. He stopped me from going out, he saved me but I could make him come with us. I tried I really did, but he wouldn't come."

"I know, it's fine, he'll be fine." Chloe assures her. "Hey, maybe later we'll try and arrange a call with your dad."

Lucy smiles genuinely at this and hugs Chloe on her way out. Lois looks between Clark and Chloe unsure and Chloe hates that she has become questionable in her cousin's eyes, hates even more that she's doing something that Lois has a perfect right to question.

"It's fine, everything's fine," Clark tells her. "Go be with Lucy."

"Okay," Lois says sparing one last look at her cousin before hurrying after her sister.

"Ready?" Chloe asks when the door closes and Clark nods. He sits down on the bed and Chloe takes a syringe out of her back pocket and slips the plastic cover off the needle. She looks at Clark as he rolls up his sleeve and she opens the lead box Dean has set down on the chair nearby. The effect is immediate. Clark grits his teeth and breaths heavily. Chloe opens the glass vial exposing the liquid kryptonite to the air and dips the needle in the bright green liquid. "Grab him, hold him still." Dean looks dubious, he's seen Clark take on fifteen demons at once and not break a sweat. He grabs Clark's shoulders anyway and Chloe brings the needle over. Clark starts to strain a bit but his strength is nowhere near what it normally is.

"You're gonna feel a little pinch." Chloe smiles and Clark actually smiles back at her. She slips the kryptonite stained needle past his skin as easily as slicing butter with a hot knife and slowly draws out the plunger. 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

A scream pierces the air in the back room of the Mess Hall and the surprise sound of it all makes Lucy jump. Lois looks up and stares in the vague direction of her cabin and though she's never heard it before, she knows, just knows that the scream came from Clark.

"Lois," Lucy whispers softly.

Lois is jerked back into the present and looks down to see that she might have gone a bit over board with the chocolate syrup. "That one's yours." Lois jokes to cover up her nerves. "You could use a bit of meat on your bones." And Lois has suddenly lost her appetite.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Just when Joshua thinks he's getting used to the noise outside the bar, a new one joins the cacophony of car alarms and breaking glass. It's a collection of horrified screams and it's really close. Joshua glances across at Robbie who's reading something he found behind the bar and moves to the window, looking out from behind the thick curtains to the outside. There's a group of guys who were obviously trying to get somewhere, anywhere but there but they weren't fast enough. They'd been grabbed by a group of infected. Joshua moves for the door but Robbie steps in front of the handles and shakes his head. "There's some guys out there…"

"I know," Robbie interjects quietly.

"Well we have to help them," Joshua tells him.

"We can't." Robbie shakes his head.

"We can," Joshua argues, confused by his indifference and reaches for the handle anyway. Robbie pulls the gun out of his waist but leaves it hanging down by his side, the threat implied.

"We can't," Robbie says again. "Max was right, they won't venture in here to look for us, but if they know where here, we're lost."

"But they've got…"

"It's already too late." Robbie sighs and Joshua can see in his eyes that this decision wasn't easy for him. He nods to the window and they both walk over. They see the infected grab the first man bodily and shove him to his knees. They pull his arm out behind him, twisting it painfully before taking a piece of broken glass and slicing it across his skin. Joshua closes his eyes while the man thrashes in desperation.

**::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

Chloe stands in front of the Kandorians, her face betraying no emotion. In one hand she holds Dean's knife, in the other a small jar of thick read liquid. Zod steps forward and falls to one knee, bowing his head briefly before looking up at Chloe. He offers Chloe his right arm, fist tightly clenched. She takes the knife and slices it across his forearm, it cuts clean and even, blood sliding over the skin. He barley clenches his jaw.

**::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

The words of Edmund Burke float to the forefront of Joshua's mind and he can't resist speaking them aloud. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Robbie looks at Joshua and sighs. "Face it mate, evil's already triumphed."

Joshua doesn't want to believe him, even though he's watching the truth right in front of him, as another of the infected drips blood into the man's open wound and then moves onto the next guy. "Not yet." Joshua shakes his head with feeling. "We're still here."

**::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

Chloe places a single drop of Clark's blood onto Zod's arm. In seconds the cut vanishes completely and Zod pulls himself to his feet slowly. He stares into Chloe's eyes and something has changed, it's slight but it's there. He's no longer just Zod, he's now Major Zod and Chloe swallows. He gives her a brief nod of thanks before stepping back into line.

Alia steps forward next and takes a knee in front of Chloe and she pauses, second guessing this decision for the first time since she'd brought it up to Dean. She'd argued the case against it, so that he could argue the case for giving the Kandorians their powers and he'd finally settled the argument with a throwaway line. He'd looked at her, shrugged and said, "The devil you know…"

Chloe looks over at Dean and allows him to see the doubt in her eyes. She's not expecting him to stop her; she just wants him to know, needs someone to know that she's not sure about this. He nods, understanding and she takes a hold of Alia's proffered arm, slicing into her skin with the knife.

Zod and the Kandorians are certainly the devil she knows, but she wonders when it became acceptable to side with a devil of any kind.

_The Ice age is coming, the sun's of an end_

_Meltdown expected the wheat is growing thin_

_Engines stop running but I have no fear_

'_Cos London is drowning' and I…live by the river_

_-The Clash_


	11. Bad Moon Rising

Bad Moon Rising

_I see the bad moon arising_

_I see trouble on the way_

_I see earthquakes and lightnin'_

_I see bad times today._

**June 4, 2011**

The Kandorians take to their newly acquired powers like fish to water, much better than Clark ever did growing up. All of them are already flying, something Kara hadn't been able to get Clark to do in the year that she was there. The Kandorian's master it in a matter of minutes. Chloe's even more doubtful now that she's done the right thing but she certainly cannot let Clark or anyone else see that. The glares she's constantly receiving from Lois in no way help her feelings but she soldiers on. She sends the Kandorian's on their first mission and puts them in charge of getting all of the equipment Emil has requested and bringing it back to the camp.

In less than an hour it's finished. The large storage barn on the far side of the lake has been repaired, rewired, and transformed into a fully functioning, completely stocked, state of the art medical research lab and that makes Chloe feel slightly that it all might have been worth it. Emil finally arrives at the camp only a few minutes later, doesn't comment on the way he was told in no uncertain terms that his time was up, or the impossibility of Chloe putting together his lab in less than 24 hours, simply nods and requests some samples so he can get started. Chloe dispatches Zod overseas to get blood and tissue from various infected, _"anyway you can"_ she tells him and he nods, relishing the assignment, perhaps a little too much.

When she finally gets Emil settled in and assigns Zod as his personal Kandorian butler with orders to give the good doctor whatever he requires whenever he requires it she's actually exhausted. For the first time in a long time she thinks she could sleep a full eight hours, maybe more, but she has no time for sleep, she won't for another week at least then who knows how long after that.

She has a meeting with Lois to discuss the things they'll need, so much more than she thought. The only thing they're actually good on is toilet paper and even of that Chloe is tempted to order more. She's put off and put off getting the generators and wiring them into the camp. She knows they will need them once the power fails. She never got around to having the wells dug either which will come in handy when there's no more running water. She's not sure if she simply dropped the ball or if she was waiting until the last possible second in the hopes that she may never _have_ to do these things. Then there's the winter supplies, the coats and gloves and scarves and mittens that likely no one bothered to pack, the extra thick blankets, space heaters and so much more they'll need if they don't want to freeze. Her head is spinning and were it not for Sam and Jo and Oracle she knows that there'd be no way she could keep track of all of it, much less get anything useful done.

She has to stave off questions every time she sets foot outside. Everyone wants to know what's going on, everyone wants to know what they're doing, what happens next and Chloe hasn't had enough time to come up with a proper answer. She tells them they'll be a meeting. She tells them to stay calm. She lies through her teeth.

She pauses in front of the lab and just breathes for a second before heading in. "How's it going Doc?" She picks up a box of microscope slides and flips it over in her hands.

"Chloe, hi, what time is it?" He pulls off his glasses and rubs his eyes.

"Ten." She sets the slides back on the counter.

"What day?" Emil asks her confused.

"Saturday?" Chloe says, not exactly sure herself. "Have you slept yet?"

"No." He shakes his head. He looks tired but he doesn't sound it, he sounds almost excited. When Chloe makes a face he simply smiles at her. "Have you?" She inclines her head to him in surrender. "I wanted to make sure you had something to give to the General this afternoon."

"You could have slept." Chloe winces though she's very appreciative of his work ethic.

"No, no, no, this is fascinating." He assures her. "I've never seen anything like it. Sam brought me up to speed with what you know but there's still so much more to be learned."

"Anything I can give the General?" She asks him hopefully.

"Yes, blood to skin contact is not a threat but I'd still be careful because all it takes is the smallest cut, an injury you might not even know you have to get it in your blood stream."

"Anything else?" Chloe looks up disappointed. She pretty much knew all that already.

"I'm sorry no." Emil shakes his head. "It would be easier if I had a live test subject but as that's impossible-" 

Chloe holds up a hand and tilts her head to the side. "Nothing's impossible Emil. Not these days. Give me a few hours."

"A few hours for what?" Emil asks her slowly.

"Give me a few hours." Chloe repeats. She nods subtly at Zod. He's been standing stoically like a good little soldier in the corner of the room the whole time. He didn't even acknowledge Chloe when she arrived but now he follows her outside. Emil goes to the door and sees Chloe whispering something to Zod. Zod nods his head and makes a move to walk off but Chloe grabs his arm. Emil opens the door a crack and catches the tail end of the conversation. "For now, let's keep this between us." Zod nods again and zooms off.

"Can you hear much from the camp out here?" Chloe asks absentmindedly, staring across the lake in the far off distance where she can just make out vague shapes of people.

"No." Emil shakes his head slowly stepping outside fully. "We're pretty isolated out here."

"Good. That's good." Chloe nods. "You're going to have two Kandorian's out here with you at all times now."

"Why?" Emil asks.

"For your protection and the camp's." Chloe says cryptically and Emil frowns. The only thing they would need protection from was if…but surely she wasn't actually suggesting bringing live Croatoan infected into the camp. She sees it the second he understands what's going on. "This thing took over Western Europe in less than 48 hours. For all intents and purposes we have to assume that entire European continent is dead. They're not broadcasting and we can't get through to them by any of the traditional means. It's as if they aren't even there." She takes a deep breath. "In less than a week, what happened there is going to happen here." Emil's eyes widen. "I'm not going to be able live with myself if I know there was something I could have done but didn't because of some prehistoric notion of morality."

"How am I going to do tests when I can't touch the patients?" Emil whispers, understanding fully now that Chloe means for him to use them as unwilling test subjects.

"Sedate them, or if you don't want to do that for medical reasons, that's what the Kandorian's are for." Chloe shrugs.

"Are they immune?" Emil asks suddenly the idea bolstering him. Perhaps there's something in their blood he can make into a vaccine if not a cure.

"I don't know." Chloe answers him. "Does it matter?" At this Emil is surprised because to her it really doesn't matter if they're immune or not. When Oliver had related to him that Chloe and Clark had given the Kandorian's powers Emil was obviously worried. Despite their insistence that they merely wanted to help he knew some trepidation was still required when dealing with the Kandorians. Then, upon arriving at the camp and seeing Chloe with Zod and Alia, it almost seemed as if they had come to some tentative partnership, if not even a friendship of sorts, and maybe that's partly true. But he also understands now that a part of Chloe sees them as simply tools, a means to an end and that thought saddens him more than he thought it would.

"I suppose not, no." Emil says quietly.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**June 5, 2011**

Two days go by and they're all still confined in the relative safety of the pub. Joshua's taken hanging out in the main room upstairs even when it's not his shift at the doors. They were forced in the middle of the night last night to board up the windows but it's still better than being in the basement.

"Lunch time." Jeremy stops in front of the booth Joshua had been trying to nap in and he sits up. Jeremy's got two plates in his hands. "You want beans on toast, or beans on toast?" 

"Damn, I was really craving beans on toast." Joshua smirks and Jeremy drops the plates on the table and slides into the booth across for him.

"We're running low on food." Jeremy picks at his toast and Joshua finds he doesn't have much of an appetite either. "We're gonna have to go out for supplies."

"I know." Joshua looks up. "The water stopped running this morning."

"Shit." Jeremy hangs his head. "I really thought they'd have been on top of this by now." Joshua raises his eyebrows_._ "The government, the army." Jeremy answers his unspoken question of who he meant by _they_. "I'm all for freedoms and liberties but I'd give anything right now to see a mob of camo clad SAS men storm the city and take it over." Joshua snorts.

"Who will go?" He asks, back on the subject of a supply run.

"Me, Max volunteered." Jeremy shrugs. "And Robbie."

"Robbie's got a wife." Joshua looks up in protest.

"Max has a sister and mother somewhere. Maybe." Jeremy adds. "It's not stopping him."

"I suppose." Joshua nods. He opens his mouth and Jeremy shakes his head.

"You don't have to." He tells Joshua. "Even if it's just for show. We all know that Ms. Haden can handle a weapon better than you and you were training to be doctor right? We need you safe and here in case one of us isn't so safe."

Joshua sags in relief then feels a coward for doing so. "I had two years of Med-School before my scholarship funding was pulled. I've spent the last year working in a book shop."

"You can still put on a band aid though right?" Jeremy smiles.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**June 6, 2011**

"What's our long range weapons situation look like?" Chloe asks before the door to the armory is even shut behind her.

"Long range?" Bobby asks her confused.

"Anything that can kill from arms length." Chloe clarifies for him. "We're not going to be able to rely on close combat weapons with the Croatoan infected, you get close you get dead. I need stuff with long range capabilities, guns, bows and arrows, swords."

"The weapon's we're good on, it's ammo where we're short." Lucas pipes up and Chloe turns to him. "We were making our own, rock salt for the shot guns, special bullets for the demons, we didn't bother to stock pile much regular ammo."

"I was afraid you'd say that." Chloe rubs her temple. "How fast can we get some?"

"How much do we need?" Bobby asks.

"All of it." Chloe answers him with no hint of humor in her voice.

Bobby nods slowly. "I've got a few contacts, I can get us set up before the end of the week."

"You have two days." Chloe stands up to leave.

"Two days?" Bobby scoffs at her. "You know something I don't?" He pushes his chair forward, blocking her exit.

"So many things." Chloe smiles briefly. "Two days. You get in a bind I've got a guy I can put you in touch with." She walks out the door without looking back. She wants a drink, she needs an aspirin but she'll get neither one of them any time soon.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"How'd it go?" Joshua asks when Jeremy slinks back into the basement and nods him over.

"What are you guys doing down here?" Jeremy asks casually, almost too casually.

"Amelia was kind of nervous we were distracting her with a very…what's the opposite of "rousing" game of go Fish." Jeremy frowns. "Ms. Haden refused to play any type of poker or blackjack, pretty much any card game they would play in a casino. What's going on?"

"Robbie got hurt."

Joshua sighs and walks up the stairs. Max is standing over Robbie who is bleeding all over Joshua's favorite booth. He stops dead in his tracks and Jeremy is confused for a second until he understands. "He's not infected, we didn't even seen anyone else. Dumb ass fell off a ladder and through a glass freezer door."

"Did you get any water?" Joshua rolls up his sleeves.

"Not a lot, we sort of had to cut our shopping trip short." Max glares at Robbie who flips him two fingers.

"Lucky for us we're in pub." Joshua climbs behind the bar and reaches for a bottle of vodka.

"Wait." Jeremy steps forward. "Not the booze."

Joshua sighs. "He's bleeding all over my favorite booth. He's living in dingy basement which is going to make the risk of infection quite high especially because I don't have any antibiotics so I have to sterilize the wound any way I know how, hence the booze."

"Yeah ok, I get that, but at least don't use the high shelf stuff." Jeremy begs. Joshua turns back and notices that he's reaching for a completely full bottle of Ketel One. Joshua relents and grabs a cheaper no name vodka.

"Could I get some of that top shelf stuff here?" Robbie groans. "We've got no painkillers and I'll need to be slightly smashed when Amelia finds out."

"Good man." Jeremy jumps up and grabs the vodka then two cups and Joshua raises his eyebrows. "What? He can't drink alone, that's just wrong."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**June 7, 2011**

"That's wrong." Chloe snaps at Ellen. "It has to be wrong."

"It's not wrong." Ellen says calmly.

"Well it's not good enough." Chloe wants to scream. With all her planning, all the money she's spent (all of Oliver's money), all the time and energy she's put into this place and this mission and its glaring obvious it was nowhere near enough.

"Chloe we're stocked up for the end of the month." Ellen tells her, taking the anxious tone and in stride. "We're fine."

"We're not fine and we're not stocked up, we're nowhere near stocked up." Chloe counters. "Look we need more. Like a lot more, like it's-the-end-of-the-world-so-what-we've-got-is-all-that's-left-because-we-don't-know-when-we'll-be-able-to-get-some-more more."

Ellen stares at her for a second. "Why do we need that much?" She asks Chloe slowly.

"Because." Chloe catches herself and takes a deep breath. "We need to be prepared."

"Prepared for what exactly?" Ellen lays a hand on Chloe's arm and she brushes it off angrily.

"Don't ask questions, just fix it." Chloe declares, walking out of the mess hall.

"Hey." Jo storms out of the mess after Chloe. "You didn't have to be such a…" Chloe spins around to face her and Jo stops short.

"A what?" Chloe raises her eyebrows.

"Look, she doesn't get how serious this is because you won't let me tell her how serious this is but even not knowing, this hasn't been easy on her, it isn't easy on any of us but we're trying. We're busting our asses to make you happy."

"This isn't about making me happy. This is about our future, our survival." Chloe says.

"And we get that we really do, you have no idea how much we get that." Jo tells her. She pauses, biting her lip. "I need to show you something." Jo grabs Chloe's arm and pulls. Much to her surprise she allows herself to be pulled along.

"Where exactly are you taking me?" Chloe asks, more amused than angry at this point. She's actually slightly impressed with Jo for calling her out.

"We wanted to wait, until it was finished," Jo says as they head into the woods. "But you need to see it now."

"See what exactly?" Chloe asks. They step through the tree line and into a clearing beyond the lake. Only it's not exactly a clearing, it's a field, or rather fields to be more precise. There are rows upon rows of plowed fields planted with various produce and grains as far as the eye can see. She brings her hand up to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun. "What is this?" She asks as she spies what looks suspiciously like citrus and apple trees lining the edges of the fields.

"It's our farm," Jo says with not a small amount of pride in her voice.

In the distance Chloe can see a red tractor, a very familiar red tractor actually and though it's too far away for her to tell who's driving it, from the red jacket, she can hazard a guess. She puts two fingers in her mouth and lets out a rather impressive whistle. The tractor stops immediately, the driver turns in their direction and then suddenly Clark is standing in front of her.

"So you can take the man away from the farm but you can't take the farm away from the man?" Chloe asks slightly in awe. "Did you do all this?"

"It was her idea." Clark nods to Jo and Chloe turns to her impressed.

"It was an off handed comment. I didn't even think it could be done. I mean I knew we couldn't spare the man hours but then Clark offered to take on the bulk of the work himself and then…" Jo motions to the area.

Chloe just stares. This kind of forward thinking hadn't even occurred to her. They had more than enough money, they had shelter and ammo to last them for years but Chloe was already seeing the difficulty in keeping them stocked with a steady supply of non perishable food. But this was renewable, they could theoretically keep replenishing the fields and the fresh fruit and vegetables would definitely be healthier for them all.

This was their future.

She looks back from the fields to Clark and notices for the first time he looks a bit unsure of himself. His hands are thrust into the pocket of his jeans and he shots a quick sideways glance at Jo. She smiles broadly at him and his mood brightens a bit.

He lifts his head, his stance more sure. "I know no one authorized it, but most of the trees out this way were termite hollowed, so I cleared them and started putting in some produce beds and..."

Chloe puts a stilling hand on his arm, much like she used to back in the day when she wanted to tell him she understood. "This is amazing." Chloe steps forward and runs her fingers through the already hip tall stalks of wheat. She lets out a laugh and turns to Clark.

His smile is so genuine it reminds her of days that had become nothing more than a distant memory. Of hay scented spring breaks and star gazing summer nights. Of innocence and freedom from the responsibility of all the lives counting on her. Her own smile dims and she feels a chill slide through her. "Uh, do you need any extra hands?"

Clark senses the change and pushes on. "The land is irrigated by the lake, there's really not much left to do but open the channels once a night and wait for the harvest. I can handle it. I don't want to take any of the guys away from their training. It's important."

"_This_ is important." Chloe assures him.

"Yeah, I know, but I've got it." He assures her.

Chloe smiles up at him. "Clark." She hopes that the tone of her voice conveys the things that she can't say. "Thanks."

He smiles at her and nods. He gets it and they're not ok but his smile gives her hope that someday they might be. They're not those two kids anymore, the ones who used to spend cool summer nights staring up at the stars in his barn making up stories for the constellations because they couldn't remember the real names, who didn't, couldn't have a clue what the world had in store for them.

They've hurt each other over and over again, Chloe's latest transgression is just one in a long line but they've always made it back to each other, albeit slightly tarnished and a bit worse for the wear. Chloe didn't want to admit it but she was actually worried that maybe this last time was just too much to come back from.

"I better get back...there's the broadcasts, preliminary military reports and..."

Clark folds his arms over his chest. "It's fine, go. But Chloe, you know where to find me... if you need me," he finishes slightly offhandedly. It's an olive branch. He disagreed with her plan for the Kandorians but he still went along with it and this is his way of saying he'll still follow her lead. He's still here for her. With a blink, he's back across the expanse of dirt and on the tractor again, hard at work.

Chloe takes one last look, allows herself one last smile then sets her features and turns to Jo. "You yelled at me." She says stone faced as she starts walking back towards camp.

Jo opens her mouth then swallows rushing to catch up to her. "Yes, yes I did do that."

"And if I'm not very much mistaken, you were just about to call me a bitch."

"You will notice that I did not actually call you that though." Jo points out hopefully.

"You should have." Chloe turns around. "I was being a bitch, I have been a bitch. You stood up to me back there. That took balls that I didn't know you had." Chloe says and Jo smiles standing up straighter. "Don't do it again."

"Of course not." Jo loses her smile in an instant. "Ma'am."

"I wasn't kidding when I said we had a lot of work to do, someone's got me-" Chloe looks down at her watch, "Almost half an hour off schedule." Jo opens her mouth to apologize and Chloe turns and starts walking back to camp. "Let's get to it, Sidekick."

Jo smiles at the nickname, she's heard the stories, it's what Oliver used to call Chloe back in the day. Some people, like Lois, saw it as an insult, meant to degrade, but Chloe knew and Jo knows it means more than that. "Yes ma'am." Jo smiles then hurries after her.

**::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

**June 14, 2011**

"They'll be back soon." Joshua promises even though he's almost past the point of believing it himself. They left nearly five hours ago to get some cough medicine and they still weren't back yet. Everyone had been so worried about Robbie and infection no one noticed when Amelia started coughing until it was too late. Even she'd brushed it off but after three days with no medicine, whatever it is has settled into her lungs and held on tight. Joshua's sure being stuck in a basement for a week isn't helping things. "Hey." Joshua jumps up when Jeremy and Max walk down into the basement. "Where's Ethan?" He whispers and Max just shakes his head. Joshua swallows, that must have been what took them so long. "Well did you get it?"

"Yeah." Jeremy holds up a bag and walks over to Amelia and Robbie. Amelia coughs again and Robbie smoothes her hair out of her face. Jeremy shoves the bag into Robbie's hands. "The place was a wreck, trashed a few times over, pretty much everything was just in a big pile on the floor. Had to dig through it all but I'm pretty sure I got everything you said to get." Robbie empties the bag and every possible pain reliever, headache medicine, allergy and cold pill on the market spills out.

"Thanks." Robbie says grabbing something and taking out a few pills helping Amelia swallow them.

Jeremy nods and gets back up. "This is crazy." He whispers to Joshua. "It's 2011 and it's entirely possible she's going to die from a bloody cough."

"Hey!" Joshua shakes his head no and pulls Jeremy away as Robbie and Ms. Harden try to keep Amelia calm. "Did you get any food?"

"A little." Max says. "Probably won't last but a day maybe two if the three of us don't eat."

"But it's ok, we heard something." Jeremy shakes his head.

"It's not ok." Max interrupts. "It's ridiculous."

"There was a radio in the shop, someone, somewhere, is still broadcasting and they say there's a ship leaving Cardiff in a month for the States." Jeremy tells him. "I think we should go."

"To Cardiff?" Joshua frowns.

"Well yeah, then America." Jeremy says.

"We don't even know if the broadcast was real." Max protests.

"Does it matter? We can't stay here." Jeremy snaps. Joshua has a feeling they've been having this argument since they heard the broadcast.

"So we should go to Cardiff?" Max asks incredulous as if it's the stupidest suggestion in the history of people suggesting things.

"Well it wouldn't be my first choice obviously but it's better than nothing. Look we're running out of food. We've been to every place it's safe enough to go to around here. We're gonna have to move anyway at some point and even if there's no ship, Cardiff's got to be better than here." Jeremy points out.

"Never thought I'd hear anyone say that." Joshua snorts.

"You can't be considering this." Max protests. "We lost Ethan today and that was just running to the corner Tesco's."

"Yeah and Amelia is down here coughing up a lung, most likely from the all mold in this dingy basement." Jeremy snaps back, his voice too loud and everyone stops and looks at him. The tension in the air is so thick Joshua can hardly breathe.

"He makes some good points. I think we should put it to a vote." Joshua says finally. "If everyone agrees we go."

"Fine." Max nods stiffly. "But, I want it on record that I think it's a bad idea."

"Everyone in favor of leaving this hell hole behind and trying to get to America?" Jeremy turns to the others. Slowly one by one hands are raised in the air. "So, it's unanimous?" Jeremy smiles. They all know they can't stay in the pub forever and the prospect of heading to America is very appealing.

"It's not unanimous." Max points out being the only person who voted against.

"Yes but you said if everyone else agreed you'd go along with it." Joshua reminds him.

"I'll go along with it but I want it clear that I'm doing so under duress." Max stands up and walks to the stairs. "We've left the doors unguarded for long enough."

"There's no infected out there." Jeremy reminds him. "None that are trying to get in anyway."

He's right, the ones that had managed to keep their minds, had stayed sane after the infection took over their bodies had all gone from the city. They'd organized together, set up their stronghold in the Parliament building by the river. Jeremy and Ethan had seen it for themselves when they went in search of food. And the crazy ones, well they were only dangerous when you ventured out into the streets, into their territory.

"Best not to take any chances." Max calls casually over his shoulder. He pauses and turns around. "We'll go out for supplies tomorrow and then come up with a game plan. We can head out of the city before the end of the week, give Amelia a bit more time to rest up." Before anyone can say anything, agree or disagree, he slams the basement door shut behind him and that's the end of that.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**June 16, 2011**

"Oliver seriously, what are we doing here?" Chloe stuffs her hands in her pockets and hunches her shoulders up as far as they can go, trying desperately to cover her ears. The temperature had dropped almost ten degrees in the past two hours, making far too cold for this time of year, almost as if the universe can sense what's coming. "We've got less than twelve hours left, I give everyone a day pass and you bring me here?"

"Yep." Oliver nods not offering any more information.

Chloe had gathered everyone in the Mess hall that morning, told them all that Croatoan would be released in the US tomorrow. She explained that they would all be assigned a specific area of the country, that their job would be to try and contain the infection as much as possible, to help whoever they could help, set up refugee camps, make sure the people were as safe as they could make them and if at all possible, try and stay out of the Army's way. Until that happened, if there was anyone in the outside world that they wanted to bring into the camp before the sky fell down, family members, friends, they were more than welcome to go get them and bring them back.

Sam had left early that morning. He hadn't told Chloe who he was going to get and Dean was just as clueless but he had a few ideas. There was a girl Dean said, Anna, she worked in an auction house but that had been so long ago. The rest of their "family" were hunters and already at the camp. Dean had no one to bring in so he stayed at the camp, helping Bobby get the weapons organized and working with Jo to hand out assignments and coordinate travel with the Kandorians.

Chloe also had no one to bring in. Her father was still steadfastly refusing to leave Paris and her mother…she really didn't want to think about her mother. Oliver would be overseeing California and more personally would be in charge of Star City tomorrow. He'd promised Chloe that they would secure her mom's facility, keep it well stocked and make sure the nurses and patients were safe. Chloe knew it wasn't as good as bringing them to the camp but they really didn't have the resources to take care of all the special needs patients and it wouldn't be fair to simply bring her mom and leave the other's to fend for themselves. She didn't like it, but it was the best they could do.

Chloe had been planning on using the day to make any last minute changes to their strategy, double check the weapons supplies and maybe possibly catch up on some sleep when Oliver practically kidnapped her and dragged her to Gotham City.

"I know I've spent quite a lot of your money in the past year but I doubt sincerely that I bankrupted you." Oliver offers her a small raise of his eyebrows to indicate maybe she's not that far from the mark. "Ok, well, even so, the world's pretty much going to end tomorrow and money will be useless. Besides, I think we're a little past begging door to door for corporate sponsorship at this point." She looks up into the imposing visage of Wayne Manor and then back at Oliver.

"Bruce and I are friends." Oliver reminds her.

"Really?" This time it's Chloe who raises the eyebrow. "Is that why I had to disarm the security system from hell and scale the back fence? Because you're such good friends that the front gate just wouldn't do?"

"We haven't actually seen each other in a few years, or well, as far as he knows anyway." They are at the front door now and Oliver raises his hand to knock.

"Seriously?" Chloe's hand shoots out and grabs his wrist halting his movements. "We're just going to knock on the door?"

"Well, yeah." Oliver nods.

"Ollie, we were chased by dogs after sneaking into the grounds and you're just going to knock?" Chloe lets go of his hand and he knocks on the door.

"How else is he going to know we're here?" Oliver asks her with a smirk.

"You're on KP duty for a month when we get back…oh no better yet. We're probably going to need some latrines dug, don't know how long the plumbing is going to keep working." Chloe smiles as the door opens. Bruce Wayne himself stands there with an amused expression on his face.

"Oliver Queen." He puts his hands in his pockets and leans against the door jam. "Haven't seen you since Excelsior. Figured the world would have to be coming to an end for you to show up on my doorstep."

"It is." Chloe supplies helpfully. "Tomorrow at 8 to be more precise." Bruce pushes himself off the wall and stands up straight. "But could we discuss all that inside, it's freezing out here."

Bruce looks from Chloe to Oliver and then smiles. "By all means, make yourselves at home." He moves aside and allows Oliver and Chloe into the house, closing the door behind them.

"Bruce Wayne, Chloe Sullivan." Oliver introduces them and they shake hands rather amicably, though Chloe is still confused as to why they're there.

"Never thought you'd be the type to open your own door." Chloe says for want of small talk as they walk through the cavernous house into one of many sitting rooms. They pass four before they're actually let into one and Chloe wonders what's so special about it when Bruce walks over to the fireplace and turns it on. Chloe smiles and hurries over, pulling her hands out of her pockets and holding them in front of the flames, trying to regain some feeling in her fingers.

"Well my Butler is otherwise occupied."

"He has an actual Butler." Chloe smirks at Oliver. "He knows how to be properly rich. How come you never had a butler?"

"Because I never had trouble opening my own doors." Oliver nudges her slightly out of the way so he can share the warmth of the fire.

"Oliver sucks at being a rich person." Chloe groans as if this fact severely annoys her.

"That doesn't sound like the Ollie I remember." Bruce chuckles.

"It's true, he's completely horrible at it. I would be so awesome at being rich. I would have a butler."

"Where is Alfred?" Oliver interrupts Chloe, as if he'd heard this tirade many times before.

"He's been trying to contact some family members." Bruce runs a hand through his hair, a bit of weariness seeping through his face. "He's not having much luck."

"Oh, right." Oliver nods and turns to Chloe. "Alfred is from England." Chloe's eyes widen in comprehension.

"I'll make some calls; see what I can find out for you if you want." Chloe offers Bruce and he frowns at her confused.

"What could you possibly find out that I can't?" He asks her moving to stand next to the fireplace.

"I know some people." Chloe shrugs and turns around so the fire can warm her back.

"She's knows some people?" Bruce raises his eyebrows and Oliver chuckles. "Does this have anything to do with the world ending tomorrow at nine?"

"Eight." Chloe corrects him.

"Is that Central or Standard time?" Bruce jokes walking to the tall buffet in the corner and grabbing three glasses. Chloe scrunches up her nose in confusion and he grabs the scotch, pouring an even measure in each.

"I don't know." She sounds seriously disturbed by this. "I forgot to ask."

Bruce carries the drinks over and pauses at the look on his old friends face before Oliver takes the glasses from him and hands one to Chloe. "You're being serious about this?" He sips his own scotch and it burns going down, just how he likes it.

"At Eight O'clock tomorrow morning the Croatoan Virus is going to be released in America." Chloe downs her scotch and sets the empty glass on the fireplace mantle. "I don't know where, probably a couple of places for maximum impact, at least that's what I would do."

"Croatoan?" Bruce asks her confused.

"Right, sorry, that's what it's called, or well what we call it anyway. It'll probably be mainstream by tomorrow." Chloe informs him. That's what she's been using to brief her Uncle so that's what he's been using to brief everyone else.

"After it's released in America?" Chloe nods. Bruce downs the rest of his drink and grabs Chloe's glass without asking. He walks back to the bar and pours another round, this one much more substantial than the previous one. "And how is it you know this?"

Chloe abandons the warmth of the fire and walks over to Bruce to retrieve her drink, the scotch doing a much better job of warming her than the flames anyway. "I know some people." She says again cryptically. "Oliver why are we here?" She turns to Oliver whose been content to stay in the background and watch the events unfold for the most part. He sets his still full glass on the mantle and walks closer to Bruce and Chloe.

"We can use him." Oliver tells her.

"I told you, we're pretty set on money and besides a substantial trust fund I don't really see that he's got anything to offer us. Unless you know being a philandering billionaire is suddenly a survival skill." Chloe smirks and tilts her head. "Hey then you'd be set."

"I was never a philanderer." Oliver shakes his head more amused than insulted by her remarks and Bruce resists the urge to show his own hurt feelings. "And he's got more to recommend him than just the ability to sniff out good champagne at fifty paces."

"A hundred paces." Bruce jokes, more surprised that Oliver Queen of all people is defending him than the fact that the world is going to end tomorrow. Maybe the fact that Oliver Queen is defending him is proof that the world is going to end tomorrow.

"You guys have met before." Oliver smiles between the two of them. "Many times before actually."

"I'm pretty sure I'd remember him." Chloe shakes her head.

"Ditto." Bruce raises his glass to her and she joins in the toast.

"Well, you know each other by different names." Oliver crosses his arms over his chest. "Chloe, I'd like to introduce you to Bruce Wayne, or as you know him, Batman." Before Bruce can process that not only does Oliver somehow know his secret, but that he also feels no need to keep it to himself, he's talking again. "Bruce, meet Watchtower."

Bruce turns his attention back to the petit blonde woman pouring herself another glass of his finest scotch and lets out a humorless laugh. "I take it that makes you Green Arrow? IF A=B and B=C then A=C." He explains at Oliver's raised eyebrow.

"And to think in school you had trouble with basic math." Oliver claps him on the back.

"You're Batman." Chloe is glaring at him now instead of smiling. Considering the only thing that's changed in the last two minutes is that Chloe know knows him as Batman, Bruce tries to figure out what exactly he's done as the big bat to incur that ire from her.

He remembers meeting the Green Arrow vividly. It was two years ago. He'd beat the boys in blue to a robbery in progress in downtown Gotham City and was ready to bang some skulls, only someone else had beat him. When he got to the jewelry store the perps were stuck to the wall, green arrows pinning them in place and a leather clad man standing in the corner. "I was wondering if the police were going to beat you." He said, crunching through the broken glass to get closer. "I'd heard pretty good things about your car, guess the rumors are true."

He'd introduced himself as the Green Arrow, gave him a spiel that read like a mission statement and made him an offer to join his team. Bruce not so politely declined but it didn't deter the man in green. He simply slipped an ear piece in his hand and told him if he ever needed help just ask for Watchtower.

Bruce put the earpiece in his belt then promptly forgot about it and the meeting until three months later when he found himself stuck in bad situation and when he'd exhausted all his options he put his earpiece in and called for a Watchtower. Almost instantly a woman replied to his call for help, confirmed his current location, asked him what kind of assistance he needed, and then put him on hold.

She came back a second later, told him that the door to his cell was now open and then talked him out of the compound and back to his car. "Thank you for choosing Watchtower search and rescue, have a nice day." She'd signed off the comms and Bruce found the whole thing amusing. He used the ear piece a few more times. She was always there, ready to help. She always seemed to know exactly where he was and exactly what he was doing too which should have really bothered him but the only times he thought about it were times when he really needed her help so he didn't care.

"Let's get out of here." Chloe turns abruptly on Oliver and even he looks confused. She just sighs and sets her glass down, making her own way out the way they came in.

"Chlo, wait a minute." Oliver walks after her and Bruce follows.

"Did I do something?" He asks her.

"You suck." Chloe turns around and cringes. "I mean you don't suck, you're actually really good at what you do, I mean if you weren't you'd need my help a whole hell of a lot more than you do but as far as team work goes you suck."

"I suck at teamwork?" Bruce tries to understand what's happening and fails miserably.

"You only ever call me when you're in trouble, two seconds away from total death and destruction. You refuse to become a member of the team and actually help in something bigger than yourself." Chloe turns her anger onto Oliver now. "What could possibly make you think we could use him or need him or that he'd want to even help us?" Chloe asks. "The one time I asked him he was nowhere to be found."

"Chloe." Oliver snaps at her and it's been so long since he's done it, it startles her and she stops.

"He left you to die." Chloe reminds him.

Bruce raises his eyebrows, wondering when this event occurred. "Not on purpose." Oliver tells her softly.

"He doesn't care about the greater good, he doesn't want to join the big fight, and he's certainly not going to take orders from me. He's unreliable and I won't have him on my team so it was nice to meet you. Have a lovely apocalypse." Chloe turns on her heel one more time and storms down the hallway. They both flinch when the front door slams.

"I left you to die?" Bruce asks Oliver intrigued.

"There was a thing." Oliver waves it off as if it were nothing. "Everyone else was busy and she sent you a distress signal and you didn't answer."

"I'm assuming everything turned out ok." Bruce says looking at a very much alive Oliver in front of him.

"She was pretty shaken up by the whole thing." Oliver shrugs.

Bruce remembers now, he remembers the distress signal, he remembers ignoring it and now that he thinks about it he remembers Watchtowers communications turning from snarky to chilly afterward.

They find her twenty minutes later shivering uncontrollably, perched on the edge of the well in the garden. Bruce and Oliver cautiously make their way over to her. Oliver slides his jacket over her shoulders before sitting down next to her. Bruce follows his lead.

"It was the first time they'd gone out since…since my husband died." Chloe explains to Bruce without preamble. "It was the first time they'd all been out, as a team, on something big and all I could think-" She turns to Oliver. "If something were to happen to you, I couldn't fix it. I couldn't heal it and then you'd be gone and he couldn't even be bothered to answer the phone."

"I'm fine." Oliver assures her. "Everything turned out fine and no one died and it's in the past."

"But it's not." Chloe shakes her head. "It's not for me." She stands up and paces. "Don't you see, I deal with that every day. Forget the prophecy; forget what I'm supposed to do. In the here and now every day I send people out there, I send them out to fight. They could get hurt, they could die and I can't do a thing to fix them, to heal them. What I can do is make sure that I trust the people out there who have my back, who have your back. I need to know I can rely on them, know they'll do what I tell them to do when I tell them to do it."

Bruce stands up slowly. "Look, I've always been a go-it-solo kind of guy. It's just a part of my nature and I can't change that. You're right, I was a jerk. I used you when I needed you and never repaid the favor, so let me repay it now." Chloe looks as if she's about to protest. "I want to help, I'll do whatever you need me to do, whatever you tell me to do. Let me make it up to you huh?"

Oliver turns to Chloe and offers her a look that reminds her they really aren't in the position to be turning don offers of help and she groans. "You follow my lead, you don't go off on your own, you don't question me."

"I can do that."

"And you refer to me as ma'am." Chloe says. Bruce looks ready to laugh but stops himself by the look on Chloe's face.

"Chloe!" Oliver turns to her surprised.

"No it's fine." Bruce brushes Oliver off. He knows this isn't some power trip, this isn't Chloe making him do this for the fun of it. Part of it is so that he can show Chloe that he's is willing to do whatever it takes, part of it is so he has a constant reminder of who's in charge and part of it is to show the seriousness of the situation. "I can do that ma'am." Bruce nods at her.

"Pack a bag we leave in twenty minutes." Chloe tells him and he turns and goes back in the house. Chloe thinks it might actually work out.

"I am not calling you ma'am." Oliver says.

"That's fine, you already know who the boss is." Chloe winks at him and follows Bruce back in the house.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

When Chloe and Oliver get back to camp, Bruce and Alfred in tow, they see they're not the only ones who brought a friend. Chloe spies Tony, the tattoo artist in a heated discussion with a few of the hunters. "I liked it better when I thought you guys were a cult." Tony calls to her.

"You and me both." Chloe smiles and keeps walking. "Whose idea was that?" She asks Jo nodding in Tony's direction.

"Mine." Jo looks up sheepishly. "I just thought with all the new people that are likely to pass through here, it'd be good to have him close by."

"Good thinking." Chloe smiles at her and Jo beams in appreciation. "This is Bruce and Alfred, find them a cabin somewhere."

"We're running short of those." Jo frowns.

"Get some Kandorians, send them out for supplies and have them build some more." Chloe tells her, she can feel the headache forming just behind her eyes again. Those precious few hours when it was just her and Oliver, out in the world, no camp, no apocalypse, no one looking to her for answers or explanations seems like a distant memory now.

"Of course." Jo nods, struggling with the stack of papers in her arms. "These are the latest reports. Oracle's been monitoring all the military chatter. They're contemplating issuing a Nationwide Quarantine on Friday."

"Day late and a dollar short." Chloe snorts grabbing the papers from her. The government had done exactly what she expected they'd do. By the time the outbreak had spread across the entire European continent, moving into Russian and China and down into the Middle East and Africa before the week's end, they had downed all planes, cancelled all flights into or out of the country. They had their top scientist working around the clock and getting absolutely no where. They came on television practically every hour on the hour, all the AM radio frequencies too and assured the nation that they were working on the problem and they would find a solution.

She knew from her talks with her Uncle Sam that they weren't any closer to finding things out than Chloe was, except they refused to listen to him. They were rather insistent that this was merely a terrorist attack, nothing more nothing less. The General had then had the bad sense to insinuate that if it was a terrorist attack, considering they were among the only non infected left, along with Canada, Mexico and South America, all signs actually pointed to us as being the culprit. That didn't go over too well with the Joint Chiefs and Chloe's almost positive that if they'd had the time and manpower, her Uncle would have been tried for treason and dishonorably discharged. As it is, she's pretty sure that he and his whole unit are now technically rogue.

"Did they come up with a plan for if…when the infection spreads here?" Chloe looks up at her.

"Just like you and the General speculated. Declaring Marshall law, shelters, rationing, all extremely predictable." Jo says.

"And completely useless." Chloe lets out a breath. "Thanks Jo." Jo just nods and motions for Bruce to follow her.

"Chloe!" A familiar voice calls out from across the grounds. It sounds scared and hopeful and relieved, which isn't a strange thing around here. She turns around and her breath catches in her throat. Standing in the doorway of the Mess Hall is Martha Kent, one hand resting lightly over her heart, the other covering her mouth. There are tears in her eyes and Chloe wants nothing more than to run to her, to be pulled into her arms and given that famous Martha Kent hug that makes everything better, makes the bad things go away. She wants that hug for herself as much as she wants it for Martha because if she's here, than Clark has told her, told her everything that had happened and everything that would happen.

Martha walks down two steps and stops. Because as much as Chloe wants to run and hug the woman who had become a surrogate mother to her the moment she stepped foot on the Kent farm for the first time, she cant. There are just too many people around, too many people to show that kind of weakness in front of. So she walks, calmly and slowly across the grounds and up the steps of the Mess hall. "Martha." She nods at the woman and Martha's face falls just barely.

"Chloe." Martha nods back, somehow understanding that she just can't.

"I'm glad that Clark brought you. We can keep you safe here."

"It's all true?" Martha asks.

"I'm afraid so." Chloe nods. "Did Jo find you a cabin? A job?"

"I'm working with Ellen in the Mess." Martha smiles.

"Of course you are." Chloe laughs. "Look, I've got tons of stuff to go through. Away from camp for half a day and…" she gestures vaguely to the stack of papers in her hands. "I have to check on Emil and Bobby but I'd really like to see you later, catch up?" Chloe trails off slightly; something over Martha's shoulder has caught her attentions. "Excuse me." She vaguely registers passing the stack of papers off to Oliver and then walks back down the steps toward Sam.

"Chloe." He smiles at her and lays a reassuring hand on the shoulder of the man next to him.

"Who's your friend?" Her voice is surprisingly bitter even to her own ears and the unveiled venom makes Sam step back.

"This is Father Mac." Sam says slowly and Chloe turns to the priest and looks at him more carefully.

"I told him you wouldn't exactly be happy about it." Dean says from behind her. She's so distracted she didn't even see him come up.

"Let me get this straight, you brought a priest to the apocalypse?" Chloe asks him and Sam shifts uncomfortably. She can't help it but she laughs.

"I'm sorry, what exactly about this do you find funny?" Father Mac interrupts.

"I'm sorry, what exactly about this do you not find funny?" Chloe shakes her head. "Whatever, I'm tired and I want a shower and maybe two or three hours of sleep before everything goes down tomorrow. I'm sure you'll be very useful Father Mac, if anything you can make holy water."

"Indeed I can." He says to her somewhat sadly.

"He was hoping that maybe you could spare a place where he could…" Sam trails off.

"A chapel." Father Mac explains and Chloe laughs again. "With everything that's happening right now, I don't particularly find the idea of place where you can go and worship and seek guidance and forgiveness to be such a comedic thing."

"You do realize, I mean Sam has explained to you that God is missing. He's no longer in heaven. He's not available to take your call right now? Who exactly are we supposed to seek this forgiveness from?"

"Regardless of his current location, I believe that God never truly leaves us and forgiveness can always be found, even in the darkest of times." He tells her defiantly.

Chloe stares at him for a while and she recognizes that although a church is the last place in the world she would want to step foot in at the moment, the others at the camp might feel differently, especially all the new ones, the scared ones. "Talk to Jo. We got a lot of new people today so space is going to be tight, but if you can find a building you can have it."

"Thank you." He smiles at her.

She turns around wanting nothing more than to shower and crawl into bed, preferably with Dean, but she sees Alfred standing behind her, her papers cradled neatly in his hands as he holds them out to her. "Thanks." She smiles briefly at him.

"You're welcome miss." Alfred affects a small bow and she heads toward her cabin Dean hot on her tail and Alfred close behind them.

"Why is the old guy following us?" Dean asks her.

"Alfred?" Chloe stops and turns to see he's still following her.

"Yes miss?" Alfred smiles at her.

"Can I help you with something?" She turns all the way around.

"No miss, I'm fine thank you."

Chloe looks weary but resumes the walk to her cabin. When she gets there Alfred follows her in. "Ok, what exactly is going on here?"

"Master Wayne has requested that I attend to you from now on." Alfred tells her.

"Bruce gave you to me?" Chloe allows a slow smile to grow on her face.

"Indeed he has." Alfred smirks. "He said to tell you that he intends to make things up to you and this is just the beginning. An auspicious start wouldn't you say?"

"I would." Chloe smiles. "Look, I'm fine right now, I'm really tired actually." She cuts a glance over her shoulder at Dean who seems to be waiting rather impatiently for her. "So I mean, I'm good you know, if you want to go get settled and everything."

Alfred looks behind her at Dean who smiles tersely. "Of course miss. I'll see you in the morning then. Wake up call at five thirty."

"Shall we say eight?" Dean asks hopefully.

"Four actually." Chloe corrects both of them and Dean and Alfred look to her. "The virus is going to be unleashed at eight." She smiles at Dean. "And I spent half the day recruiting someone I didn't particularly want to recruit, no offense." She says to Alfred. "I've got to check in with Emil and figure out the best place to send the Kandorians. The government is going to be caught completely off guard because they refuse to listen to reason." She bit her lip and changes her direction from the bedroom to her computers. "Oracle I need you to pull up the projected infection sites again."

"Ok." Dean shakes his head and walks to the door. "Alfred, we'll see you in the morning." He looks back at Chloe who is glaring at the screen in front of her annoyed. "Five o'clock at the earliest."

"Of course sir." Alfred smiles and walks out. Dean comes up behind Chloe and lays his hands gently on her shoulders which are basically two giant knots.

"You've looked at the projections a hundred times already. You've gone over the instructions with Zod and the Kandorians more than a hundred times and there is nothing left to do but sit and wait." Dean tells her seriously.

"I'm really bad at the sitting and waiting." Chloe spins the chair around to look at him.

"I'm pretty sure I can think of something to take your mind off of things." Dean waggles his eyebrows suggestively and Chloe can't help but laugh, releasing a bit of tension.

"I'm sure you can." Chloe nods.

"So, you disappear with Oliver this morning and show up five hours later with none other than Bruce Wayne." Dean tries very hard to appear nonchalant.

Chloe allows a small smile to twist the ride side of her mouth and she stands. "Why Dean Winchester are you jealous?"

"No." He scoffs, his expression however betraying his tone. "But seriously, how many pretty boy billionaires do you know?"

"A girl's gotta have a hobby." Chloe jokes.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**June 17, 2011**

Joshua takes a hesitant step outside the bar and onto the city street. It's the first time he's been outside since everything happened and he's almost half expecting to be attacked on the spot. Max had said the best time to travel is in the early morning hours. They aren't likely to run into many of the infected at this time of day and the sunlight will allow them to save the batteries in their torches.

The others slowly emerge behind him. Amelia's heavy breathing is the only sound that Joshua can hear in the pre dawn stillness of the street. He looks to the East and sees the sun rising slowly up behind the eerily stationary visage of the London Eye. Max had said that the sky's were heavy with smoke clouds from fires but since the rioting had all but stopped it's looking like it might turn out to be a clear blue sky today.

"Let's go." Max mumbles gruffly, his deep voice sounding far too loud, practically echoing in the alleyway around them and they all scurry to obey. Joshua's pack is heavy and already weighing him down but he'd offered to carry the bigger load because he knew in a fight he'd be useless. Max found him a gun from somewhere, they're all armed now but Joshua isn't sure if it comes down to it that he can actually use the thing.

If it wasn't for the overturned cars and boarded up windows, the deserted street fronts and the rancid lingering smell of death in the air, Joshua can almost imagine himself on a leisurely early morning stroll. He used to do that a lot with Beth. She loved London in the morning. She said it was like catching a secret glimpse of a hidden city, she was convinced one day if she tried hard enough she would get to see the whole thing.

Most morning's she'd take her sketch book and a thermos of coffee and sit at one of the benches around the fountain in Russell Square and watch all the early morning commuters hurry off to work. There's a huge box in their flat with hundred of sketches of businesses men walking, heads lost in newspapers, morning coffee cup held absently in their hands.

He has the sudden urge to walk in the opposite direction, to go to the fountain one last time. It was the place where they met, and he needs to see it, if only to say goodbye. "Joshua?" Jeremy asks confused. Without realizing Joshua had actually started to walk in the direction of the fountain, his feet leading him there out of habit. "Where are you going?"

They've all stopped now and are staring at him in confusion. "Sorry, nowhere." He turns back toward the group and shrugs it off. The fountain probably isn't even running any longer. With no water or power it just ceases to exist, sort of like London itself.

"You ok?" Jeremy asks him concerned.

"No." Joshua says resituating the weight on his back, but he doesn't elaborate and Jeremy doesn't press.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean doesn't snore. It seems strange to Chloe because Dean's a big guy. Not necessarily tall but stocky and muscular, solid. But he doesn't snore. Jimmy, wiry thin Jimmy Olsen who looked like a good wind could have knocked him over, snored like a chain saw cutting through a petrified forest. Even Oliver let out the occasional deep sleep snort. But Dean is perfectly calm and quiet, and yet still solid somehow.

Chloe lays her hand on his chest, splays her fingers out and stares at the distinct color difference in their skin; Chloe's pale white fingers against his dark sun tanned chest. She's not exactly sure when he stopped bothering to go back to his cabin to sleep at night, she doesn't really have the energy to think about it and she doesn't want to admit that she kind of likes having him there.

With Jimmy they rarely ever slept together, actually spent the night in the same bed. Partly because of the snoring which by two in the morning would usually drive Chloe to the couch, but more often than not because Chloe wasn't even there, was off on some mission for Oliver or Clark. The few nights that they did manage to stay the entire night in the bed together it was always weird for Chloe, she could never get used to the presence of another person beside her.

With Dean it's different, even though she rarely sleeps these days she likes to spend the majority of the night in the bed with him while he sleeps. She likes having him there, he makes her feel safe. He makes her feel like, after a very long day of being the boss, of being the one in charge, she can just be herself. He makes it ok for her to be Chloe and he somehow accomplishes all of this while sleeping quietly at her side.

He takes a deep breath, bringing up one of his hands to cover Chloe's. His fingers slide in-between hers and he closes his fist, trapping her hand in his. She smiles somewhat fondly at him before she catches herself and swallows hard. Pulling her fingers carefully free, she slides off the bed and grabs her pants. She dresses quickly and quietly then slips out of the room before he has a chance to wake up and wonder where she's gone.

She stands on the porch for a minute breathing in the crisp air. The sun hasn't risen yet but it's rays are already brightening the sky a bit. Chloe loves the camp in the early morning hours. Besides those on patrol or those who have chores better done in the early morning cool air, she's generally the only one awake. She can walk around undisturbed, not be bothered with questions or worries. She sees smoke coming from the chimneys of the mess hall and heads in that direction.

"Come on boy." Chloe calls to Malachi who's sleeping lazily on the porch. He offers her a disinterested grunt and stays in his comfortable position by the door. "Suit yourself lazy bones." Chloe smiles and walks down the steps.

"Ellen you know you're probably my most favorite person in this whole camp?" Chloe calls out when she finally makes her way into the back room of the mess, sitting in her usual spot at the prep table. Most days she'll sit back here and eat her breakfast in private and have her coffee while Ellen putters around her to get everyone else's breakfast ready. "Well, ok, my most favorite person in the whole camp as long as you've got coffee brewing."

"Now why doesn't that surprise me?" A coffee mug slides in front of her and Chloe looks up to see not Ellen but Martha Kent smiling down at her.

"Martha." Chloe breathes out.

"I figured I'd let Ellen sleep in this morning, give her a bit of a day off." Martha sits down next to her. "So."

"So." Chloe nods. There is so much that she wants to say, so much that she wants to explain. She wants to tell her everything, she wants Martha to hold her and tell her it will be ok because if Martha Kent says it'll be ok, then even the universe wouldn't dare disappoint her. But she can't. Even in the early morning hours, in the empty back room of the Mess hall, just the two of them and a thermos of coffee she can't do it. She knows she can't do it because if she lets one thing go she'll let everything go and she can't afford that, not today.

Martha senses this and takes pity on her. "How about a Kent Farm special this morning?" She offers instead. It's a breakfast that Martha made up what feels like a lifetime ago for Clark and Jonathan, for those days when there was so much work to be done on the farm only a proper farm house breakfast would do.

"That sounds like heaven." Chloe nods thankfully.

Chloe is instantly transported back to Smallville, back to her customary seat at the kitchen island, watching Martha crack eggs and stir waffle batter. They talk about nothing, about everything. Chloe laughs as she relates how Clark told Lois his secret and how Lois kept him in the doghouse for days afterword. They talk about stupid things and they talk about serious things. "Part of me feels like I shouldn't be here." Martha admits to Chloe flipping bacon on the stove. "Like I should be with my people, my constituents."

"There's nothing you can do for them out there." Chloe shakes her head trying to reassure Martha that she is exactly where she needs to be. "Trust me, you'll do more good here than you could ever do out there."

"I know." Martha sighs. "But it feels like I'm running, like I'm hiding. Like I'm taking the easy way out."

"You're being safe." Chloe says. "Which is almost all you can do these days."

"And you?" Martha sets the food down in front of Chloe. "Are you being safe?"

"I'm…." Chloe looks up and smiles. "I'm doing what needs to be done."

Martha doesn't point out that Chloe didn't actually answer the question. "Are you taking care of yourself at least?"

"I have people that do that for me now." She's joking but only a little.

"Well now you have one more." Martha pats her on the hand. "Eat up, I've got to start breakfast for everyone else."

Chloe digs into the food and it's quiet for a while, the good kind of easy quiet that she doesn't get a chance to relish in much these days. So really she should have been ready for the question, and she is in a way, just not when her mouth is full. "So tell me about this Dean Winchester."

Chloe manages not to choke but just barely, swallowing a mouthful of piping hot coffee just to keep everything down. "What about him?" She looks up. She knows Martha doesn't want to hear about his role in the apocalypse, doesn't want to know that he's Michael's vessel. Doesn't care that he's been fighting this fight since he was old enough to hold a shot gun. That's not why she asked.

"What do I need to know?" Martha raises an eyebrow and leans against the edge of the counter.

"He's a good guy." Chloe takes another sip of coffee. "One of the best actually."

"And?" Martha presses further and Chloe takes that as her cue to leave.

"And that's it." Chloe stands.

"Chloe." Martha steps forward. "It's been almost two years since Jimmy died and I would never begrudge you another chance at happiness. It's ok to want that, it's ok to have that again."

"It's not like that." Chloe snaps, regretting it instantly but she can't help it. Her cheeks are burning and she feels like she's sixteen again having the sex talk with her dad. "We're just having fun, which is in short supply these days."

"Oh." Martha backs off, sensing that she doesn't want to talk about it. "Ok."

"I've got a really busy day." Chloe makes her excuses. "You wouldn't happen to know if Jo was awake would you?'

"She came in here about thirty minutes before you did actually. Got a thermos of coffee and a basket of fruit and bread."

Chloe frowns. "Do you know where she was headed with all that?"

"She mentioned something about a clearing behind the lake." Martha offers.

"I know where that is. Thanks." Chloe takes one last sip of her coffee. "And thanks for breakfast."

"Anytime." Martha nods as Chloe makes her way out of the hall.

By this time the camp is starting to wake up, people are milling about and those everyday familiar noises that have become the background soundtrack to Chloe's life are starting up. She manages to avoid as many questions as possible, slipping past the new people who don't know who she is yet without incident and heading onto the well worn path that follows the lake toward the tree line.

"If you weren't here, where would you be?" Jo's voice pierces through the trees and Chloe speeds up, confused as to who she could be talking to.

"I don't know." The voice is familiar. Chloe recognizes it as Jason, Lucas' brother. "Where ever there was a job I guess."

Chloe moves closer, slipping out into the clearing where the two of them are visible. They're lying on the dew soaked grass, a thin blanket their only protection from the moisture. Jo's head is cushioned on Jason's chest as he runs his fingers through her hair. She lifts her head and turns to smile at him. "I mean if there were no jobs, if you were to settle down, let Lucas go to school."

Jason's quiet, thinking. "I tried that for a while you know. Right after mom and dad died, I got a job at this dinner in a small town just outside of Tulsa. Kellyville. It was just me, this crazy old guy who'd been cooking there since it opened and one waitress, Gloria. Lucas used to come in after school, sit in a booth in the corner and do his homework and Gloria would sneak him pie before diner and it was nice." She smiles at him and he kisses her nose. "What about you, where would you be?"

"College I suppose." Jo shrugs. "I've never really thought about it. There's never been a time in my life when there wasn't a job, wasn't a fight."

Chloe backs away slowly and heads to the camp, giving them this, this time, this moment. She can't believe she didn't see this, didn't notice before this. Jo and Jason somehow make sense when she thinks about it. She smiles suddenly though, glad that something good came out of this, that even in the midst of the end of the world those two have managed to find each other.

A part of her, a part of her that she's not ready to acknowledge is jealous of them, jealous that they can just sit there and be with one another, openly and honestly and not worry about anything or anyone, even if it is just for a few hours.

"Hey." Dean falls into step beside her when she emerges from the trail. Malachi is following happily after him and Chloe spares the dog a withering glance.

"Traitor." She jokes and the dog barks at her.

"I had bacon." Dean excuses the dogs actions. Malachi is normally loyal to Chloe. Loyal to a fault unless Cass or Dean and some sort of meat related product is involved.

"You shouldn't be bought so easily you know." Chloe scratches the dogs head briefly.

"We can't find Jo." Dean looks around the grounds.

"Jo's fine." Chloe brushes him off.

"She's got everyone's assignments." Dean raises an eyebrow.

"Oracle has a backup copy, get it from her and have Chuck take over for Jo until she shows up." Chloe finds herself at the door to the armory.

"Ok, but where…"

"She's fine." Chloe snaps at him. "Just let her be for one day ok."

"Ok, fine." Dean backs off slowly, Malachi following him and Chloe can't blame the dog, she wouldn't want to be around her this morning either.

She sighs. The day started off so promising but she's already snapped at Martha and Dean and it isn't even seven o'clock yet. She opens the door to the armory, unsurprised to find it empty except for Lucas. "Do you ever sleep?"

"Do you?" Lucas looks up at her and smiles.

"Any luck?" She nods to the left where her sword is lying alone on a table. Lucas has had it for two weeks now desperately trying to figure out how it works, how it managed to kill Adriel. Chloe doesn't want to admit that she's missed it, that her fingers have been itching to hold it, to wield it since she left it in his care.

"Nothing." Lucas tells her sadly. "I've tried everything, there's no reason why it should kill angels. It just does."

"That doesn't help us." Chloe sits down and runs her fingers over the blade reverently.

"Not really no. Though from what I gather you shouldn't be running into too many angels these days." He's right actually, most of the angels have gone underground in an attempt to regroup. They're massively outnumbered now with Croatoan infected all over the place. Lucas flashes her a bright smile. "But I made you a better sheath." He reaches for something behind him and passes it to her. The leather it's made of is soft and warn, flexible but strong, but more importantly it's compact. "It'll fit closer to your back allowing for easier access and conceal under your shirt better."

"Thanks." Chloe's finger curl around the hilt of the sword and something in her purrs. She doesn't realize that her whole body has been vibrating with a sort of nervous energy until she's holding the sword again and suddenly it stops. She slips the sword easily into the sheath and slings it over her shoulder. "You've got everything ready?" Lucas nods. "Are you gonna need any help passing out all the weapons?"

"I've got it covered. Jo assigned me some of the new guys." Lucas tells her.

Chloe stops and studies him. "Did you know that Jo and you're brother are…"

"Schtupping?" Lucas asks.

Chloe laughs surprised. There's something about Lucas that never fails to put her in a good mood. "How do you know that word?"

"Bobby taught it to me." Lucas grins. "It means-"

"I know what it means." Chloe holds up a hand.

"Yeah they've been…you know…for a few months now. They work really hard though so they don't get to spend a lot of time together." Lucas says. "They're not in trouble are they? Because she makes Jason smile." Lucas tells Chloe. "He hasn't really smiled a lot since mom and dad died. But now, he smiles every time he sees her. He's happy."

"They're not in trouble." Chloe shakes her head. "Don't worry, I may be a slave driver but I'm not in the business of keeping people from being happy." She heads for the door.

"Are you happy?" Lucas calls out to her and she stops and turns around. "I mean you don't really smile a lot."

"I smile with you." Chloe reminds him.

"Well yeah, because I'm awesome." Lucas snorts. "I'm serious, are you happy?"

"I'm fine." Chloe assures him.

"Fine's not happy." Lucas points out to her.

"No it's not." Chloe shakes her head, opens the door and walks out.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

An hour later Chloe watches from the porch of her cabin as the entire camp gathers on the Archery Range. Lucas is handing out weapons while Martha is giving out rations. Father Mac is even out there at the edge of the field offering up prayers or blessings or whatever it is Priest's do before a battle. People are milling about packs hung over their shoulders and a nervous anticipation permeates the air around them. Those that are staying behind are giving their final, sometimes tearful goodbyes but yet there are still smiles.

Lucas' words are burrowing into her brain, like a song that she can't get out of her head. _"Fine's not happy."_ She tries to remember the last time she was happy, tries to figure out the last time she didn't feel this unbearable pressure on her chest and she can't remember, can't think. She knows now is hardly the time to be dwelling on such an existential question but she can't help it.

"They're almost ready." Dean walks up behind her and the faint tickle of his breath on her neck is all it takes to ground her. He's solid and he's there and Chloe knows that if she just leans back, just a little, just enough so that her shoulders hit his chest, she knows that he will gladly take the weight from her, gladly hold her up and keep her standing and the knowledge of that eases the pressure on her chest, just a little, just enough for her to breath.

She closes her eyes and leans back until all her weight is balanced on her heels but at the last second something makes her lean forward instead. Her eyes open and she lets out a breath. Now is not the time, but maybe someday. "Let's go." She brushes past him and heads for the steps only to stop and turn around. "Dean?" She bites her lip and he looks at her expectantly. "Are you happy?"

He stops at this and thinks, really thinks about it before a slow smile spreads across his face. "As strange as it sounds, yeah I think I am." He tilts his head and stares at her. "Are you?"

"No." She answers him truthfully and his smile falters a bit. "But for the first time in a really long time, I'm starting to think that maybe someday I could be."

Dean's smile comes back at that and it's even brighter for some reason. "Good, that's good, someday is good."

"We should, you know, go." Chloe says feeling slightly uneasy under his piercing gaze.

"We should." Dean nods stepping slowly closer to her. Suddenly he's right there, in her face. His fingers come up and brush her cheek lightly, his thumb running over her bottom lip quickly before he leans in and captures her mouth in a soft kiss. They don't do this, they aren't about public displays of affection or really any displays of affection but Chloe can't bring herself to push him away, to pull her lips away from his. Instead she finds her hands sliding up his chest, her fingers slipping into the hair at the back of his neck, pulling him closer.

In the end it's Dean who pulls away, resting his forehead against hers as he pants trying to catch his breath. "Promise me you'll be careful." Chloe opens her mouth to remind him that she doesn't need to be careful but he kisses her again, quickly, cutting her protest off. "Promise me Chloe." His voice is low and desperate and she doesn't understand what's happening. "I won't be there to…I need you to promise me."

She gets it now. It's sweet in a way really. This is the first time that she'll be out there without him, without Dean to back her up. Even though she knows logically she doesn't need him to keep her safe. She knows that she could probably, literally, walk through fire and come out the other side unscathed. But the fact that she's going out alone suddenly seems to hit her. "I promise." She whispers against his lips and that must be all he needs because then he's gone and the abrupt loss of him startles her. She opens her eyes and he's standing two feet away from her, his fingers clenched at his sides, his eyes screwed shut tight as he consciously breaths in and out.

"Ok." He nods after a minute and opens his eyes. "Ok then. I'm holding you to that." He walks past her, dropping the briefest of kisses on her forehead before continuing onto the Archery Range, taking his weapon and pack from Sam.

Chloe follows him down. As she passes people begin to fall in line behind her without her even having to say a word until they're all standing waiting for her orders. "You all know what you need to do, where you need to go?" There are nods and murmurs of "yes ma'am" through the crowd. "Let's get to work." She turns around and heads over to retrieve her own pack, rechecking the sword at her back.

"I would have gone for something a little more epic…maybe bring a little Shakespeare into it. '_We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'."_ Chloe looks up at Lois and raises her eyebrows. "But yours was good too, short and sweet."

"You ready to go?" Chloe adjust the pack on her back and Lois nods holding up Malachi's leash in one hand and her own bag in the other. This is it. Behind her Castiel and the Kandorians are transporting everyone where they need to be. She catches Castiel's eye and he stops offering her a small mock salute.

"Lead on Oh Captain my Captain." Lois smiles pulling the keys out of her pocket.

Chloe plucks them from her hands and walks away. "I'm driving."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The M4 is deserted, it's spooky. Abandoned and severely damaged cars litter the road. A few bodies lie rotting in the sun and the fact that the smell doesn't bother Joshua, bothers Joshua. It had taken them two days to get far enough out of the city that it was even worth it to use a car and now they have plenty to choose from.

They pick the first one they come across that will fit all of them comfortably and is still small enough to maneuver around all the wreckage with relative ease. Plus it's the only one where the seats aren't soaked with blood. Joshua chooses to believe that the driver and passengers simply abandoned the car, that they're safe somewhere at a refugee camp, or possibly also on their way to Cardiff, choosing to go on foot for some reason.

Joshua takes the first driving shift, leaving Robbie and Max free to be on the lookout for infected. Jeremy finds the radio station that's broadcasting the information about the boat headed to America and seems almost relieved. The past few days have been hard on all of them and it's almost as if at this point he was worried he'd made the whole thing up. "Won't be long now." Jeremy relaxes into the front seat of the car, keeping a furtive eye out for any danger that might befall them.

They make excellent time, managing to get from the city limits to Reading in about four hours. They're forced to stop at an abandoned petrol station to fill up and search for food and they're so excited about their progress that they let their guards down.

They emerge from the station to find themselves perfectly surrounded by infected. Joshua drops all his goodies and heads straight for the car. He sees Amelia get grabbed out of the corner of his eye and Robbie, who'd been free and clear and two yards ahead of him, turns and runs back into the fight after his wife. He see's Max physically pulling Ms. Harden toward the car and opens the back door for the two of them to jump in.

Jeremy's on his tail and they both slide into the front. The car starts and they drive off in a screeching of tires, kicking up dirt and gravel in their wake. "We have to go back." Joshua screams.

"No way." Jeremy shakes his head and keeps on. "No more stopping, not until we're in Cardiff."

"I'm afraid that won't do." Ms. Harden says from the back seat. Joshua turns around concerned at the tone in her voice and she pulls her hand away from her neck to show a jagged gash bleeding down her chest. The wound itself is likely not life threatening but the look in her eyes lets Joshua know she's been infected.

"Fuck." Jeremy says, seeing what Joshua's seeing from the rearview mirror. They've put enough distance between themselves and the infected that Jeremy feels safe enough to pull the car over.

"Now, I may be dying but that's no excuse for foul language." Ms. Harden scolds him and Jeremy, Joshua, and Max all have a good laugh at that. "It's ok." She tells them. "I'd never been too particularly fond of the Welsh and have no desire to visit Cardiff." Joshua cracks another smile. "Just let me out here, you three keep going. I'll be fine."

"You won't." Joshua says annoyed at this whole situation, loosing Beth, Harry, Ethan, Amelia and Robbie and now Ms. Harden, sweet little Ms. Harden who baked him biscuits when he moved in. "You'll either turn into one of them or you'll just go crazy."

"Actually I was rather hoping one of you would save me from that fate." Ms. Harden looks between them and Joshua understands what she's asking. He feels the weight of the gun in the waist band.

"No." Jeremy says before Joshua can offer his own protest.

"Now now boys." Ms. Harden says. "It'll be a mercy and you know it, you'll be helping me, not killing me."

"I'll help you." Max pipes up from beside her.

"Max, this is crazy." Joshua argues.

"Not so much." Max says lifting up his arm and showing an ever growing bloodstain spreading out from a wound in his side. "Was planning on…helping myself out…don't see why I can't do her first."

"Max." Jeremy shakes his head as Max opens the door and climbs out then helps Ms. Harden.

"You two get to Cardiff, get to America. Everything's better in America right, isn't that what they say?" Max offers.

"We can't just leave you." Jeremy says weekly even as he moves the car from park to drive.

"You can and you will. Go, we'll be fine." Max closes the door and knocks on the hood.

Jeremy and Joshua sit in silence for a second before they slowly pull back onto the road. They both flinch when they hear the first gunshot and Joshua turns around just as the second one sounds in time to watch Max's body fall to the ground. He turns around and stares straight ahead not speaking, not even thinking really because he can't think, can't process what just happened. He has to think of the future, of Cardiff then the states and he has to believe that everything will be better in America.

_Hope you got your things together,_

_Hope you are quite prepared to die,_

_Looks like we're in for nasty weather_

_One eye is taken for an eye._

_-Creedence Clearwater Revival_


	12. When the Levee Breaks

**When The Levee Breaks**

_Don't it make you feel bad?_

_When you're trying to find your way home_

_You don't know which way to go?_

**June 17, 2011**

**7:58 a.m.**

Chloe sits at the small table outside Starbucks sipping her coffee. Her shoulders are tense and her whole body is on alert as she checks her watch; only two more minutes. She looks around her newly adopted town. It was never a bustling Metropolis but the streets are practically empty today, almost as if everyone knows something's going on, like they picked the right day to stay home and huddle up under the covers.

She knows she could be far more useful somewhere else, anywhere else. The only reason to even believe that the town will be targeted in the initial wave is because it's only five miles from the camp. It's well known that Chloe's people frequent the coffee shop and some of the other stores on the main street, a few of them even have a P.O. Box at the Post Office. Chloe knows that the mere presence of the camp is what put this town in danger and she can't justify letting them fend for themselves.

"I don't understand." Lois looks around, her eyes searching each person that walks by for some sign that would lead her to believe they might be infected. "We just sit and wait for someone to attack someone else? Hope that we catch them and stop them before it goes too far?"

"What else can we do?" Chloe looks over her coffee mug at Lois.

"We can warn them," Lois says.

"Sure," Chloe agrees with her. "We'll just tell them all, bring them back to the camp, the whole town."

Lois glares. "That's not what I meant, but if they know, they can fight back on their own. They'll be more careful, they'll be able to take care of themselves."

This is an argument that Chloe and Lois have been having for two weeks now. Lois thinks they should hi-jack the satellite feeds of the remaining broadcasting news stations and alert everyone of what's to come. She thinks they should announce to the world that all the monsters they used to be scared of under their beds are real, that they are out there, and actually do want to eat them. Chloe is a big fan of need to know and as far as she's concerned, no one needs to know much of anything.

"Best case scenario," Chloe tells her. "We tell them, they actually believe us and we create a panic. There's rioting in the streets and all that chaos just makes it easier for the Croats to infect as many people as possible." Lois deflates a bit. "Worst case scenario they think we're insane, ignore us completely and when the time comes and they need saving, they won't trust us."

"We should do more," Lois grumbles.

"We should always do more. But there's only so much we actually _can_ do."

"That sucks." Lois sips her coffee.

"Welcome to my world." Chloe stands up, her attention focused on something behind Lois. "I'll be right back. Order me another." Chloe carefully winds her way between the tables and Lois turns to see what Chloe is watching. There's a lady walking down the street pushing a baby carriage and not really paying attention as she turns down an alley. Walking behind her determinedly is a man. He turns into the alleyway after her and Lois sees Chloe slip in right behind them.

Two minutes later the woman runs from the alley, the baby carriage mysteriously gone, her child clutched in her arms, as she tries to flee as quickly as possible. Chloe emerges a minute later, sliding her sword in the sheath hidden at her back. She zips up her hoodie to cover the blood spatter on her t-shirt and sits back down across from Lois as if she hasn't just killed someone in an alleyway.

Lois stares at Chloe and sees now that she is not the cousin Lois used to know. She has a hard time reconciling this Chloe, who just killed an innocent person like it was nothing, like it meant nothing, with the seven year old Chloe who had once cried for days when they stumbled upon a rabbit that had been hit by a car and left for dead.

Lois remembers how Chloe wailed until Uncle Gabe finally took the rabbit to the vet where they insisted the best thing to do would simply be to put it out of its misery. Chloe cried for the rest of the night, Lois rocking her to sleep. The next day they had a funeral and Chloe was sullen and grief stricken for days afterword. How could that Chloe and this Chloe be the same person.

Chloe reaches for her cup and shakes it confused. "Sorry." Lois snaps out of her trance. "I'll go get you another."

"No." Chloe smiles. "It's fine, I'll get it. I need to go to the bathroom anyway." She pulls out her phone and types something quickly. A second later Lois spies Castiel at the mouth of the alley. He's here to dispose of the body.

Chloe stands at the sink in the bathroom breathing deeply as her phone continues to beep in her pocket, updates from the field; it's started. She unzips the hoodie and looks at her shirt. It's probably hopeless but she wets some hand towels anyway and starts to wipe at the blood stain. The door opens and a familiar blonde girl walks in. "Jenny." Chloe nods at the woman's reflection in the mirror.

"Hey Chloe." Jenny walks into the stall and a minute later the toilet flushes. When she comes out she pauses, staring at Chloe in the mirror. Chloe looks down at her shirt and shrugs sheepishly.

"Cranberry juice." Chloe says with a _"what can you do"_ shrug. Jenny smiles uneasily and nods as she washes her hands, making sure to stay a few sinks away. "How's your mom doing?" Chloe attempts a bit of small talk. When she returned to the Starbucks a few months ago- to make sure that, as per their agreement, the demon sent to set up the meeting between Chloe and Barbas had indeed left Jenny in the same condition that she'd found her in, they struck up a tentative friendship. From what she learned from Lois, Chloe was under the impression that being possessed, even for a few hours, wasn't just something that you got over and Chloe felt slightly responsible for Jenny's possession so she took on the task of making sure there were no lasting ill effects.

"Better. The doctor's say the cancer's pretty much gone," Jenny tells her with a smile.

"Great." Chloe swallows the lump in her throat as Jenny heads to the door. "Jenny-" Chloe turns to her. Jenny stops and stares at Chloe intently. Her right hand moves unconsciously to her left wrist, rubbing it lightly. She does it practically every time she sees Chloe these days. It's the very same wrist that Chloe almost broke a few months ago.

"You didn't order any cranberry juice," Jenny says softly staring at the stains on Chloe's shirt.

"No, I didn't." Chloe admits. "Do you have any other family in the area?" she asks wiping her hands and zipping her hoodie back up.

"No, it's just me and my mom," Jenny says cautiously.

Chloe falters before grabbing a paper towel and scribbling something hurriedly. "Do you know where the camp is?"

"Everyone knows where the camp is." Jenny laughs. Once they found out that the demons had known where they were all along they hadn't bothered being discrete. Most people, like Tony the tattoo artist assumed they were a cult, Chloe had told Jenny that they were one of those companies that held corporate retreats but Chloe's pretty sure Jenny didn't believe that.

"I want you to leave here, now. I want you to go get your mom and pack a bag and I want you to go to the camp." Chloe passes her the napkin. "Give this to the guy at the front gate."

"I don't understand." Jenny looks from the paper towel and back up to Chloe. This is why she doesn't do this. This is why she doesn't tell people. She reaches out lightening fast and grabs Jenny's wrist.

"You do understand," Chloe tells her and Jenny is frozen in place. "You have nightmares don't you? They started a few months ago?"

"Yes," Jenny whispers.

"They're not nightmares," Chloe tells her and a single tear escapes Jenny's eye. "You'll be safe at the camp. Please go now."

"OK." Jenny nods and Chloe drops her wrist.

"OK." Chloe walks past her and out of the bathroom. She sits back down across from Lois and silently starts to go through her messages. "New York's a mess."

"You knew that it would be impossible there," Lois tells her.

"I'll have to go up there before the days over." She rubs her face. "Anything happen while I was gone?"

"None. All quiet on the western front." Lois leans back in her chair. "You didn't get a refill." She points out the lack of coffee cup in front of her.

"Almond Mocha." Jenny walks up to the table, her apron in her hand and slides a large cup in front of Chloe. "On the house."

"Thanks." Chloe looks up at her.

"Thank you," Jenny says softly before rushing off.

Chloe watches her go and Lois watches Chloe, the ghost of a smile on her face. "Shut up." Chloe sips her coffee.

"I didn't say anything." Lois smiles. Chloe turns to her and glares.

"Life is pretty much gonna suck before the day is over, I just figured…" Chloe lets it trail off.

"The Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day." Lois smirks but stops abruptly at the look on Chloe's face. "I took that one too far huh?"

"A little." Chloe smiles and her phone beeps again. She studies the text and resists the urge to throw the phone across the street into oncoming traffic. "Shit. We just lost fifteen people in Chicago." Chloe sends a text of her own and Lois feels the familiar whoosh of air that accompanies the arrival of a Kandorian. "How bad?"

"They came out of nowhere." The Kandorian's breathing heavily, it must have been a hell of a fight. "There were almost fifty of them. We weren't prepared for something like that."

"Take me." Chloe takes one last sip of her coffee. "Can you hold down the fort here?" Lois knows what Chloe's really asking, will she be safe with Chloe gone?

"I've got Malachi." Lois nods to the dog who's lying at her feet. "I'm fine, go."

The Kandorian grabs a hold of Chloe's wrist and a second later they're both gone. "It's just you and me then boy." Lois pats his head. "Let's go save some lives." She grabs her coffee cup and heads down the street, her eyes darting back and forth looking for anything out of place.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**June 20, 2011**

It takes them almost three days, but they finally reach Cardiff. They're forced to abandon the car at the city limits and set out on foot to make it to the bay. They don't talk, they haven't talked since they left Max and Mrs. Harden. Joshua's been known to go hours at a time without talking since Beth, but Jeremy usually never shuts up. Joshua figures it's a nervous habit, talking at least gives him something to do but what's there to talk about now? He knows Jeremy blames himself. He was the one who brought up this whole thing. It was, after all, his idea to head to Cardiff and take their chances at a long shot that there was a boat that would lead them to America, the Promised Land.

"We all voted," Joshua says, trying to make Jeremy feel better. The sound of his voice is strange even to his own ears after a few days of complete silence.

"What's that?" Jeremy asks him, his eyes scanning every alley way, every shadow.

"We all voted," Joshua reminds him, "to come here, to risk it. It's not your fault."

"I know," Jeremy says and steals a glance at Joshua. "Doesn't mean I don't still blame myself."

"Yeah." Joshua nods.

"You know we're surrounded huh?" Jeremy asks reaching for the gun in his waistband.

"Yep." Joshua nods unconcerned. "Picked us up about five minutes ago."

"Right well, I don't know about you but I really do not fancy dying in Cardiff." Jeremy pulls his weapon as the first of them emerges from the shadows and he levels it at them. Funnily enough they level their own weapons right back at him. Joshua hesitates a second too long and by the time he thinks to go for his gun there's the press of a barrel right into his back.

"Keep your hands where I can see them," a woman's voice calls out from behind him. She pulls the gun from his pants and he hears her take out the clip. "Roll up your sleeves, let me see your skin."

"We're not infected," Joshua tells her as she pulls his shirt up and examines his back and sides.

"You'd say that if you were infected though wouldn't you?" she chuckles softly.

"Suppose I would," Joshua agrees. "Jeremy, you're way outnumbered here and I don't think these guys are planning on hurting us."

The barrel is removed from Joshua's back and he turns and catches a glimpse of dark brown hair and a black leather jacket as the woman sweeps past him. She relieves Jeremy of his weapon and inspects him for wounds like she did Joshua. "You're not Welsh." She looks between the two of them, the comment almost an accusation.

"No." Joshua shakes his head. "We've come from London. We heard there was a ship heading to America."

The woman nods and puts her gun away. "Gwen," she introduces herself. "We've got a refugee camp down by the bay. We're on a supply run. If you can carry your weight in bottled water you're more than welcome to come back with us."

"We can do that," Joshua agrees and Gwen smiles handing themboth of their guns back. Jeremy takes his and slides it in his pants but Joshua just shakes his head. "Do I have to?" Gwen raises an eyebrow. "It's just…I'm sure it would serve practically anyone else better than me."

"He's right." Jeremy backs him up on the claim.

"Suit yourself." Gwen shrugs keeping the gun for herself. "This way."

She leads them over a few streets to a shop where another five or six guys are loading bags and trollies full of bottled water and canned goods. The others look at them skeptically but because they arrived with Gwen that seemed to be enough for most of them. "Found some citrus in the freezer in back." A woman calls as Gwen steps through the busted out display window. "Still seems pretty good."

"Excellent." Gwen smiles in what looks like relief.

"Citrus in high demand at the end of the world?" Jeremy asks amused.

"Believe it or not." She looks at Joshua and Jeremy over her shoulder. "With the lack of fresh foods and vitamins, scurvy is a real worry, especially among the kids, citrus is a like gold."

"Company!" someone screams from the street area, and Joshua hears gunshots before Gwen shoves him behind a shelving unit and pulls both the guns from her waistband.

She walks out shooting both at once and Jeremy turns to Joshua with a smile on his face. "Thought women only did that on in the movies," Jeremy says before pulling out his own weapon and joining the fight.

Joshua feels particularly useless but it only takes a few seconds to realize they're more than qualified to take care of this without him. Gwen makes it obvious she's the leader here, shooting out orders and bullets without blinking. In less than five minutes the whole thing's over.

Joshua watches confused as one of Gwen's people searches the bodies of the fallen infected. He relieves them of their wallets and easily slips them into his own back pocket. "Oi!" Joshua's walking forward before he even realizes it. "Put them back," he says indignantly.

"What?" The man looks at him confused.

"The wallets, I saw you take them. Just because they're dead doesn't mean they don't deserve basic human courtesy. Put them back," Joshua says more firmly.

The man's face just splits into a grin. "Wait hang on, you think I'm robbing them?" He starts to laugh and Joshua's resolve falters slightly. "I'm not taking their money." He motions around to the destroyed shop. "What would I spend it on?" Joshua seems to realize now perhaps he was being a bit hasty.

"Then why did you take the wallet?"

"IDs," he explains. "I keep a list of names. These people, I don't know who they are, but someone somewhere might and…I don't know, I guess I just think someone has a right to know that they're dead. I've got family out there someone, everyone does. I just know _I'd_ like to know."

Joshua nods. "That's nice," he says somewhat sheepishly. "Sorry for you know…accusing you of stealing from the dead."

"No problem." The man holds out his hand. "You're the new guy right? Charles."

"Let's get packed up and head out. I'd like to make it back for dinner," Gwen calls out as she passes by them.

"Why?" Charles snorts. "We're having canned meat with a side of canned meat."

Gwen laughs. "If you hustle, you'll get an orange for desert." She tosses him one of the frozen citrus fruits.

"Be still my heart." He deadpans but pockets the fruit anyway, winking at Joshua.

They don't actually have to carry their body weight in water but it's pretty close and when they get to the imposing building of the Millennium Center at the Roald Dahl Plaza, Joshua doesn't actually care that the guy in the shop was right and dinner is canned meat with a side of canned meat. Gwen sits with them after they get their food and introduces them to her husband, Rhys.

"So when's the boat leave?" Joshua asks as Rhys hands him one of the bottles of water they carried back. It's warm but Joshua doesn't care, he gulps most of it down in one swallow. Rhys looks sideways at Gwen and then back at the boys.

"There's no boat," Gwen pipes up when it looks as if Rhys can't seem to form words.

"No boat?" Joshua sets the bottle of water on the ground softly. "What do you mean there's no boat?"

"There's no boat," Gwen repeats herself picking at the food on her plate. "No trip to America."

"But on the radio they said…" Jeremy sputters.

"We know," Gwen sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. "We know what they're saying. There was a boat but it was sunk- By the infected."

"They sunk the boat?"

"They also killed the captain, only man we've been able to find who could navigate all the way to America," Rhys puts in. "So the boat wouldn't have done us any good anyway."

"Right," Joshua nods numbly. This whole time, the only thing that kept him going were thoughts of getting to America. He isn't sure why, he just knows somewhere in the pit of his stomach that getting to America will make everything better. He laughs, hollow, wondering if this is what those first groups of settlers felt like.

"It doesn't matter," Gwen says, the tone of her voice dismissive. "We just got news this morning. The Virus was released in the States. In two days, they'll be just as bad off as we are. At least we've got supplies, we were gathering them for the trip but now…and this place is relatively secure, as secure as any I suppose. You can stay here as long as you like." Gwen stands up as someone from the other side of the large auditorium motions her over.

"Why the Millennium Center?" Joshua asks trying to remember what the place looked like before. He'd taken Beth here one weekend to see the Royal Ballet back when they were first dating. It was a far cry from that night. If he closes his eyes he can hear the echo of Beth's laughter assaulting his memory. He remembers her coming out of the ballet giddy and excited, still reveling in the beauty of the whole thing. He remembers grabbing her hand and twirling her around a few times in a poor imitation of the dancer they'd just seen on the stage but she laughed and smiled and kissed him and Joshua shakes his head before the feelings the memory evokes can get the better of him. "It seems an odd choice. It's rather large isn't it? Hard to keep completely secure I'd think."

"It was close to the boat, big enough to hold the people and the supplies we would need." Rhys shakes his head. "But this place is safe. There are only a few outdoor entrances that need to be watched and I suppose it gives you a lot of room to stretch your legs an all, seeing as how we're going to be crammed together for the foreseeable future. Better than a one room flat."

"We set up shop in a pub back in London," Jeremy says. "I'm pretty sure in the coming months I'll gladly give up the space for just a bit of the booze in that place."

"God can't remember the last time I had a pint." Rhys shakes his head then laughs. "We're pretty lenient here- don't wander off, pull your weight and you'll fit in fine. You need anything just let me know OK?" He gets up and walks over to Gwen. Halfway there a little girl comes running out of nowhere and slams into his legs. For his part he simply laughs and lifts her into his arms, carrying her over to Gwen who smiles in delight and peppers her with kisses. This Gwen is a far cry from gun tooting mercenary they saw earlier.

"It's a nice place to ride out the end of the world I suppose." Jeremy leans back and looks up at the high ceilings of the theater, placing his legs on the top of the chair in front of him and crossing his ankles.

"Everyone keeps saying it's the end of the world," Joshua says quietly.

Jeremy lets out a bark of laughter and sits up straighter. "Look around mate. If it's not the end of the world, what is it?"

"I don't know." Joshua lets out a breath and stands up. "I don't know."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Lois doesn't see Chloe again for three days and when she does she hardly recognizes her cousin. The girl that had been joking with her at the coffee shop, the girl who let her guard down for a minute to save a random barista is gone and Lois knows this time she likely isn't coming back. Her features are hardened, her eyes are cold and there are slashes in her clothes but no visible injuries on her body, not that Lois expects there to be any wounds. She only offers her cousin a brief nod as she passes that says everything she needs to say. _I'm back, I'm alive_. But it definitely does not say that she's okay. "What's the count at now?" Lois hears Jo ask her.

"Seventy five, last time I checked." Chloe grabs the cup of coffee someone passes to her. "Has anyone heard from the group in San Diego?" Sam catches her eyes and shakes his head. "Make that eighty two." She passes the coffee cup off to anyone who will take it and cracks a completely humorless smile. "Guess we don't have to worry about over crowded cabins anymore," she says seriously as she heads up the steps and into her room.

Casualties. Eighty two casualties Lois realizes, and that's just on their end, that's not counting the hundreds of thousands of people around the country who've died in the past few days. Croatoan spread across the U.S. only slightly slower than it spread across Europe. The government was quick to declare quarantines, create hot zones and respond with the full power of the Armed Forces, but it only served to slow down the pandemic, not to stop it.

Lois isn't even sure what they're doing anymore, why they're still going out in the field. At this point it feels like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. But that doesn't stop Chloe, it doesn't keep her from fighting so it won't keep Lois from fighting.

Chloe walks into the bathroom of her cabin and stupidly assumes that the crowd of people in her Situation Room, all vying for a minute of her time won't follow her in there. How wrong she is.

"Washington's gone silent." Jo continues on with her report even as everyone else talks over with their own news and requests.

"How long ago?" Chloe asks her splashing a bit of water on her face.

"Three hours."

"Bruce?" Chloe turns around.

"He's in California still." Jo bites her lip.

"Send Alia."

"She's in Florida." Jo reminds her.

"Why is she in Florida?" Chloe squints confused.

"You told me to send her there." Jo looks terrified as she relays this information to Chloe. Her stance is braced and her knuckles are white on the clipboard she's holding. It's as if she's scared Chloe is going to scream at her, which Chloe realizes she's been doing a lot lately.

"Right, sorry." Chloe takes a deep breath. "Who's free?"

"No one," Jo whispers.

"Okay, give me ten minutes to change. I'll go myself," Chloe offers.

"No," Dean speaks for the first time from his position across the room and everyone turns to him. "Send Sam."

"I can go," Chloe protests. "Besides, Sam just got back from Atlanta."

"You just got back from Atlanta and Chicago and New York and Miami. I believe you may have even made a stop in Pittsburg," Dean reminds her.

"Do you have a point or are you just reciting my travel itinerary?" Chloe glares at him.

"Guys, give us a minute?" Dean pushes himself off the wall and everyone reluctantly walks to the door. "Jo." Dean grabs her arm. "Send Sam to Washington, grab us some food from the Mess and make sure that no one steps foot past that door for the next eight hours at least."

"Jo, don't listen to him," Chloe says weakly.

"Jo." Dean stares at her and Jo nods at Dean then walks out of the cabin.

"I don't have time for…whatever this is," Chloe protests.

"Food?" Dean offers. "Possibly a nap."

"This isn't kindergarten Dean, it's the Apocalypse and there's no napping during the Apocalypse. I don't have time for napping," Chloe says, feeling her phone vibrating in her pocket with more updates as she speaks. She moves to retrieve the phone but Dean's quicker than she is, grabbing her wrist with one hand and sliding his other in her pocket to pull the phone out.

"Oracle, I think it's time to initiate Operation Blackout," Dean calls to the computer behind him.

_"I have been saying that since yesterday_." Oracle snorts at Dean.

"What's Operation Blackout?" Chloe asks Oracle, who doesn't answer her. She turns her attention to Dean. "What's Operation Blackout?"

"Well we figured at some point we were going to have to forcibly make you take a rest and the only way that would happen is if we cut off the flow of information coming to you." Dean holds up her phone and turns it off, sliding it into his own pocket. "So until such a time as I see fit, Oracle is no longer going to answer to you. She will provide you with no information, no updates, she won't even tell you what time it is, and all of your messages are being redirected to my phone as we speak."

"You two were planning this?" Chloe looks at him in disbelief. "You're in cahoots."

"As much as a person can be in cahoots with a computer, yes." Dean nods shamelessly.

"This is…you can't…what if…" Chloe sputters.

"The Apocalypse has started, there's nothing we can do about that now but try and manage the situation and that's not going to change if you take five hours or so to sleep," Dean points out to her.

"And who's going to manage it exactly?" Chloe asks and Dean smirks. "You?"

"You do remember that I've been doing this longer than you." He grabs her shoulders and spins her around, steering her to the bed. "I can hold down the fort for a few hours. I mean come on, what's the worst that could happen?"

"Seriously?" Chloe groans at him. "You seriously just said that? You just jinxed us."

"Chloe, sleep." Dean pushes her down until she's sitting on the bed and he starts to take off her shoes.

"OK, but if I wake up and the east coast has collapsed into the sea, I'm blaming it on you." Chloe leans back against the pillows and yawns.

"If the east coast collapses into the sea, it'll solve like fifteen of our problems," Dean points out, pulling the blanket up under her chin. "You should throw me a parade or something."

"I'll take that under advisement," Chloe says sleepily, her eyes already closed.

Dean looks down at Chloe and marvels at how easy it was to get her to agree. Most of the time he feels as if he's in a constant game of tug of war with her and he never really gets anywhere. She's constantly resisting, constantly pulling away, keeping herself at a safe distance. But every now and then he can see it in her eyes, a moment, a split second where she considers giving in, where she's right there on the edge of letting him in and though she never actually makes the jump, the fact that she thought about it, is enough for him.

He's not going to push her, he knows that wouldn't end well. He also knows that she knows it's not just about the physical for him anymore, she knows that it's more than that to him. He's pretty sure that's when it went wrong between her and Oliver. She's never said, never admitted that there was anything there but Dean has his suspicions and he's pretty sure that the moment Chloe realized that Oliver felt something more than she did, was the moment she put an end to whatever was going on between them. So the fact that she knows how Dean feels and hasn't said anything or treated him any differently gives him a little bit of hope, and a little bit is all he really needs.

Her body sinks into the mattress as she falls asleep, her frown disappearing, her forehead going slack and Dean thinks about the last time he saw her this relaxed.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_"I swear to God when you walked into the police station I almost had a heart attack, until I saw that FBI badge." Dean shakes his head at Chloe. "I gotta hand it to you, it was a pretty good plan, taking me into Federal custody." _

_"Yeah, much better than your genius plan to get arrested in the first place." Chloe smirks, reaching across the small wooden table and grabbing a handful of Dean's fries. "Wait a minute-that wasn't part of the plan," Chloe says and Dean glares at her but raises his beer bottle in a salute to her. She raises her own, tapping the neck against his then downing the last of her beer._

_One of the hardest parts of being a hunter was convincing people that you were whoever you needed to be to get the job done. 90% of that was confidence and when Chloe had shoved her way through the police station doors, wearing her green leather jacket and her aviator sunglasses, FBI badge swinging on a chain around her neck and Dean's back up Glock in the holster on her hip she was oozing confidence. The talking down that she gave the two arresting officers for not immediately calling it in was just icing on the cake. It had taken them all of two seconds to take Dean's handcuffs off and pass him over into her custody. It was also extremely hot. _

_"You know, you looked pretty comfortable in that role," Dean points out._

_"Yeah well, you'd be amazed at how many times AC got arrested for acts of domestic terrorism." She smiles fondly at the memory but Dean can still see the pain and loss in her eyes when she thinks about him. "Each week it was a different activist organization and after a while it just became easier to pretend to take him into custody than to bail him out of jail," Chloe shrugs as the waitress comes by and drops down two fresh beer bottles on their table, taking away the two empty ones. _

_"Can I get you guys anything else?" she asks, offering Dean a dazzling smile that he completely ignores._

_"Do you have pie?" Chloe asks and the waitress turns to her with a nod. "Two slices of pie and the check please," Chloe says, sipping the fresh beer as the waitress walks off. _

_"How can you still be hungry?" Dean asks, even as she reaches across the table and steals another handful of fries from his plate. "You ate two burgers." _

_"It's the adrenaline, I eat," she says simply. "I think I picked up the habit from Bart." She reaches in her back pocket and pulls out her wallet. _

_"No." Dean reaches across the table and covers her hand with his. "I've got this," he tells her and she opens her mouth to protest. "Tell me you weren't about to reach for your Gold Card?" Chloe doesn't say anything and Dean shakes his head. "I'm not letting Oliver pay for my dinner." _

_"So you're gonna pay?" Chloe asks and Dean nods. "You have no money," she reminds him. _

_"Right now." Dean smirks at her. _

_"And you see yourself getting a sudden windfall in the next ten minutes?" Chloe snorts._

_Dean just smiles bigger at her and nods over her shoulder. "You remember what I taught you about hustling pool?" he asks, sliding out of his seat and walking toward the back of the bar where there are two pool tables and a group of what looks like frat boys just waiting to get taken for everything they've got. Chloe smiles and follows behind him a minute later. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_Dean leans over and lines up his shot, a little to the left and he can sink the 14 and set the 10 up for the corner pocket but instead he moves a bit to the right, missing the shot entirely and managing to do nothing more than scratch the cue ball. The frat boy in the green polo snorts as Dean moves away from the table and sets up his shot, sinking the 3 in one smooth move and then standing back to survey the table. "So is he that bad or are you just that good?" Chloe purrs from the frat boys right, the beer bottle dangling from her fingertips as she looks up at him through her eyelashes._

_"I'm just that good," he says over confidently as he lines up his next shot, banking the 5 ball off the side of the table and into the corner pocket. _

_Chloe giggles, actually giggles and the frat boy puffs out his chest and Dean smiles because he never had such an easy time setting up a mark with Sam. Plus the scenery wasn't nearly as pretty, Dean thinks as Chloe scoots to the edge of the bar stool and spreads her legs a bit, letting the beer bottle dangle in between them like an invitation. Frat boy can't keep his eyes off of her but she lifts her head slightly and smiles a special smile Dean knows was meant just for him, her eyes locked on his as she brings the beer bottle to her lips and takes a long slow swallow. _

_Suddenly the room is a bit hotter and he loses his concentration for a second, actually sinking a ball on instinct before Chloe coughs subtly, reminding him that he's supposed to be losing. He spends the rest of the game setting up shots for the frat boy so they can get to the part where Dean starts to win, so he can get his money, pay the damn bill and drag Chloe back to the motel room. For her part Chloe is giggling and blushing and hanging on the frat boy which just serves to drive Dean even more insane. _

_When the frat boy suggests they go double or nothing next game Dean jumps at the chance, sinking two balls on the break and not even giving the frat boy a chance for the single shot. When the eight ball drops into the corner pocket, Dean grabs the bills off the side of the table with one hand and Chloe's elbow with the other. "Pleasure doing business with you." Dean smirks at the frat boy's dumbfounded expression and heads for the door. _

_He drops more than enough to cover their diner and a rather large tip on the table, barely allowing Chloe a chance to grab her jacket from the back of her chair. "Slow down," she laughs but she doesn't pull her arm away. "What's the rush?" Dean doesn't even answer, just keeps pulling her toward the door. "What about my pie?" Chloe pouts._

_"I'll buy you two pieces tomorrow," Dean says. He can see the door ahead of him and he reaches out for the handle when a green shirt is suddenly blocking his exit. _

_"Hey!" the frat boy says annoyed, shoving Dean back a few steps. "You hustled me." _

_Dean drops Chloe's arm and clenches his hands into fists at his side as the frat boy steps toward him, but he never has a chance to throw a punch because suddenly Chloe's in front of him and the frat boy is frozen in place, a look of pure and unadulterated pain marring his features. Dean frowns and steps up against Chloe's back, looking down over her shoulder to see that she's got the guy's nuts in a vice-like grip. He cringes and unconsciously moves his legs as if to protect his own junk._

_"Look, you got hustled, it happens," Chloe says. "But you've got two choices now, you can take it like a man and walk away or-" Chloe looks over her shoulder at his buddies who seem to be watching them carefully. "Or we can do this right here, right now and your little friends can watch as you get taken down by a girl. And make no mistake, I can take you down." _

_Frat boy swallows and looks at Chloe then back at Dean. "I'll walk away, no big deal it's just money."_

_"Good choice," Chloe says, releasing the man's balls and stepping back. "Now move aside, you're blocking the door." _

_Frat boy nods and steps to the right, moving out of Chloe's way very slowly and very awkwardly, a grimace of pain still evident on his face.. Chloe reaches behind her, her hand seeking out Dean's as she slips her fingers between his and pulls him to the Impala. _

_Three hours later Dean's desperately trying to catch his breath and Chloe collapses against his side. Her sweat soaked skin sliding against his but not at all in an uncomfortable way. He's glad Chloe agreed to this. One last hunt before the shit hit the fan. He likes her like this, this person that she becomes when it's just the two of them together out on the road. It's almost as if with every mile Dean puts between her and the camp her shoulder's become lighter, her eyes brighter as she gets further away from the responsibility that's been thrust upon her. And she laughs, she laughs all the time, almost like she's been storing it up and it explodes out of her in these tiny little bursts, sometimes surprising even herself. _

_Dean loves that he can give her a few days, maybe even a week every now and then, where she isn't responsible for fate of the world, where every choice that she makes doesn't carry with it potential catastrophic consequences. Hunts are easy, there's a monster, you find it, you kill it and if you're lucky you save some lives, it's generally black and white, right and wrong and Dean knows that she cherishes those easy assurances more than anyone could ever know. _

_But it's this that he loves most of all. In that moment when the job is done and it's just the two of them, their bodies completely exhausted, first from the fighting and then from the sex, the crappy motel air conditioning working overtime to cool the heat of their bodies in the dark quiet of the twilight hours, Chloe talks to him. _

_She whispers things into his skin, her long forgotten dreams, some fond childhood memories, terrifying nightmares. She tells him about her team, about going up against the Luthors, about taking out 33.1 labs and metas, what it feels like to know that you have a power that no one else in the world has, a power that terrifies and excites you. She tells him all these things, counting on the darkness to keep them a secret, to mask her vulnerability and when she's tired of sharing things from her past when she feels comfortable enough she moves onto the present. _

_She tells him how some days she doesn't think she can do it, how every now and then she can convince herself that God and Castiel and the devil have all been tricked and she's not the Messiah, she's not the last hope and those are the times when she can finally breath again but then reality comes crashing down on her and her chest gets tighter once again. She tells him how tired she is, how exhausting it is to carry this around all day every day and she knows that her friends, her family would love nothing more than to share that burden but she'd gladly carry it alone forever if it meant that they were spared the pain and doubt that she felt on a daily basis. _

_Dean doesn't say anything, he just listens, his hand splayed at the base of her spine, holding her tight against his body. He listens and he lets her talk until she's got nothing left to talk about. And they'll sit in silence for a while, in that space between awake and asleep and as much as Dean thinks it should be, it's not awkward. And just as Dean thinks he might finally be able to drift off to sleep Chloe asks his advice on a problem at the camp and then he does talk. He tells her his ideas, his impressions, what he thinks about what she's doing, what he thinks she can do better or differently and most of the time he's not even sure if she's listening but he talks anyway until he feels her breathing even out and her eyes close and if she ends up using one his suggestions he never mentions it, never asks for the credit. _

_Those times he doesn't sleep, instead he watches her sleep, keeps watch over her while she sleeps because he knows the second they step foot back into the camp this Chloe will be gone. But that's okay because he knows that she's still in there, somewhere and someday he'll get to see her again and he can wait however long it takes. In the meantime the other Chloe's not so bad…she's just different and sometimes different isn't all bad. He can see it's necessary, her way of coping and if there's anyone that can relate, it's him. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean has no idea how she managed to get under her skin, how she crawled so deeply into his life that he's not sure if he could ever get her out again or if he'd even want to and he doesn't even care anymore. He used to care, back when they were both pretending that it was just sex between them. He worried about the strange power that she seemed to have over him, how this tiny little slip of a woman seemed to be able to take the control away from him but mostly he worried about how much he liked it.

Dean knows that he's a good leader. He knows that his dad would never have left him and Sammy if he wasn't a hundred percent sure that Dean could do what needed to be done, could protect his brother and work the jobs and handle whatever was thrown at them. He also knows when it's better to follow, if there was one thing his dad taught him it was to know your strength and if someone else has a better grasp of the situation than you do, you follow their lead or you'll probably end up dead. So when Chloe had offered that first day at the camp to take over, somewhere deep inside Dean knew that was the right decision even if he couldn't explain why, so he stepped aside and the fact of the matter is, he knows, without a shadow of a doubt despite the fights they've had, the disagreements and the differences of opinion, she's doing a much better job than he ever could. As strong as he'd liked to believe he is, he's not sure that he could make the decisions that she makes on a daily basis and he's thankful that he doesn't have to.

_"Are you planning on staring at her all day, or would you perhaps like to do something a bit more constructive?" _Oracle asks, shaking Dean out of his thoughts.

Dean brushes the hair off of Chloe's face and watches her for a second more before leaning down and laying a soft kiss on her forehead. She smiles sleepily and Dean has to seriously resist the urge to climb into the bed next to her. He feels his phone vibrating in his pocket, signaling Chloe's messages have arrived. He pulls it out and sees that in the past few minutes he's managed to accumulate twenty five texts.

"Tell Jo to send Alia to back Sam up in Washington as soon as she gets back from Florida," Chloe murmurs.

"Chloe," Dean scolds her, "sleep." He backs away from the bed slowly and closes the door.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_Chloe inhales deeply and takes in the familiar scent of fabric softener and aftershave. The sheets are softer under her cheek and the pillows much fluffier than she's slept on in a long time. "I shouldn't be here," she mumbles without opening her eyes._

"You haven't been here, not in a while." Jimmy's hand brushes hair off her face and Chloe recalls Dean doing the same thing right before she fell asleep. Because Jimmy is a product of her mind, she wonders if he only did that because Chloe remembers Dean doing that and if so, what else does Jimmy do only because Chloe remembers Dean doing it. "You're thinking too much." Jimmy scolds her. "I did it because your hair was in your face, it's really that simple."

"It's really not." Chloe finally opens her eyes and looks at him.

"No, it's really not," Jimmy agrees.

"How much of this is still you?" Chloe wonders. "How much of you is taken from what I remember and how much is taken from other people because I'm starting to forget you and I have to fill in the blanks somehow?"

"What you really want to know is how much of me is Dean?" Jimmy smiles at her indulgently and Chloe doesn't offer a confirmation or a denial. "Does it matter?" Jimmy sits up next to her.

"Yes," Chloe says.

"None of this is really me."

"I'm not delusional," Chloe tells him annoyed. "I don't think I'm actually talking to you."

"I know that, I just meant that even the memories you have of me aren't truly me, they're a version of me- a version of me you chose to believe I was or wanted me to be, or just needed me to be at that time. Most of me is Jimmy, there are bits taken from other people. There's a little bit of Clark, your Dad, Oliver, you, and yes, Dean."

"Does that mean I'm forgetting you?" Chloe asks.

"That means you don't need me as much as you used to." Jimmy smiles softly. "And that's a good thing."

"It doesn't feel like a good thing," Chloe argues.

"It is," Jimmy assures her. "You've got someone else to lean on now, not that you're actually doing a lot of leaning."

"I can't," Chloe tells him, she doesn't ask who he's talking about, she already knows.

"You should," Jimmy counters. "You can't do this by yourself and if you're worried about looking weak, you know that's just an excuse. If you keep on like this your gonna burn out and fast, and then you won't be any good to anyone."

"But you're…"

"I'm dead, Chloe." Jimmy grabs her face and forces her to look at him. "I'm gone and I'm not coming back. But he's there, he's alive, and he's real, and he wants to take some of weight off your shoulders, so let him. Let him do what I can't do. Let him be there for you in a way that I can't anymore."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe slowly opens her eyes. She's back in her bed at the cabin, back in the real world. She can hear the soft murmur of voices coming from behind the door and climbs out of the bed. She feels rested, far more so than she has in a very long time and she smiles. Pushing the door open just a crack, she stands and observes Dean. "Has Alia checked in yet?" he asks Jo who shakes her head.

"No, you want me to track down Zod and get a report?"

"Yeah, and then tell Chuck I need to see him. He was trying to tell Chloe something about generators, I wasn't really listening but it sounded important."

"It is." Chloe steps into the room announcing her presence. "He's having a hard time hard wiring them into the camp's electrical system. He needs some specialized equipment and someone who knows more about generators than he does."

"Who would that be?" Dean frowns.

"Pretty much anyone who knows anything about generators." Chloe laughs. "Jo, check the lists, with all the people we have at this camp if there's not at least one electrician in the bunch I'd be surprised."

"Sure." Jo nods and backs out of the cabin.

"There were like fifteen people talking to you at the same time earlier, how did you even catch that?" Dean looks at her impressed.

Chloe shrugs, it's just something that she's gotten used to. "How long was I asleep?" She motions at all the papers strewn about the table and idly flips through them.

"Only 18 hours." Dean holds out a mug of coffee and Chloe eagerly takes it from him, sipping it slowly, sparing Dean an annoyed glare.

"18 hours?" She asks. "How could you let me sleep for 18 hours?"

"You needed it. And the world is still standing." Chloe offers him a dubious look and he relents slightly. "Okay, it's in relatively the same condition as when you left. Plus, last time I checked, the east coast was still firmly attached to the rest of the country."

"That's something at least." Chloe laughs.

And because the fates obvious have it in for Dean and time is conspiring against Chloe ever getting to sleep again, Jo chooses that precise moment to burst back into the cabin. "Sam's been taken," she says panting.

"Of course he has." Chloe closes her eyes. "By whom?" she asks curiously.

Jo stops and Chloe glares at her. "Soldiers."

"Soldiers?" Dean asks his jaw clenched, his fins curled into fists at his side. He'd probably already be halfway to Washington if it weren't for Chloe's hand on his arm, keeping him in place.

"From the description it sounded like Marines." Jo bites her lip. "And it sounded planned."

"Explain to me why Alia couldn't stop them?" Chloe asks confused.

"She didn't actually see it. Sam had already been taken when she got there. She couldn't find anyone at first, not the initial group we sent and not Sam. She finally found someone who told her what happened. The girl said they were taken, that they were all taken and then Alia came straight back to camp to tell you."

Chloe sets her coffee cup down. "Jo, I want Alia and whoever this witness is, in here now. I want to hear the story myself. Oracle, if you could pull up all the military chatter for the past eighteen hours and get my Uncle on the phone." Chloe pauses and turns to Dean. "That is, if I'm in charge again."

"Oh please." Dean gratefully steps back, symbolically ceding control to her.

_"Thank God_," Oracle calls out sounding harried. "I _never thought I would actually see the day I missed you bossing me around_."

"I wasn't that bad," Dean protests.

"_No, you were actually very polite, something that Chloe could use a few pointers on. It is just your brain-"_

"What exactly is wrong with my brain?" Dean stares at the computer screen offended.

"_Nothing for a normal human but compared to Chloe, you process information at an alarmingly slow rate. I mean compared to me, Chloe processes information slower than a Commodore PET trying to calculate PI to the thousandth digit, but she is still faster than most humans._" Dean looks confused and Chloe resists the urge to laugh at him. "_I never fully appreciated how uniquely your brain worked compared to the rest of your species. Granted you created me so that should have been my first clue. Also your brain chemistry has been severely altered by an advanced alien supercomputer." _

Dean looks at Chloe confused. "I told you about that-" she cuts off abruptly and turns to Oracle. "What do you mean severely altered?"

"_Well I have taken a few scans and it they seem to indicate…"_

"You've taken scans? Of my brain," Chloe asks her incredulously. "When…what…"

_"I have the General on the line,"_ Oracle interrupts her.

_"Chloe?"_ Uncle Sam's voice comes out of Oracle's speakers.

"General." Chloe makes a mental note to have another discussion with Oracle about what kinds of things are appropriate and what kinds of things could be constituted as an invasion of privacy. Things like scanning a person's brain without their knowledge or consent. Then she makes a mental note to figure out what Oracle means by "severely altered". "What's your current location?"

_"Heading into Wales, why what do you need?"_ he asks.

Chloe frowns, confused as to why he'd be going to Wales but puts that on the back burner. "What are you hearing out of Washington?"

_"Nothing these days, although an apology wouldn't go turned away." _ He laughs. _"Why?"_

"Do you have any idea why the United States government would take time out of its now immensely busy schedule to kidnap some of my people?" He can hear the barely contained rage lying just under the surface at the transgression.

The General snorts in amusement. _"No, but I can bet whatever their reason, it's not going to end well for them."  
_  
"Not if I have any say in the matter." Chloe sits down at her screens and starts typing.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 

**August 2, 2011**

Joshua looks around the main room of the Millennium Center where they eat, sleep, live. Everyone's busy doing something, everyone except for him. Jeremy's been fiddling for days with what he says will eventually become a working motherboard, though it doesn't resemble any motherboard Joshua's seen before. Jeremy points out that he's working with whatever he can salvage and assures Joshua that when it's finished it will work just as well as one made by Bill Gates himself. "Do you ever feel useless?"

"All the bloody time mate," Jeremy says with a smile. "It was pretty much default setting in Uni."

"I mean here, now." Joshua sighs.

Jeremy looks up and his smile softens a bit. "I keep pretty busy with this lot. Hand me one of the BIOS chips?" He motions vaguely in the direction of a large pile of tiny pieces of electronic equipment. Joshua looks on dumbly, not sure exactly what Jeremy's asking for so he reaches over and grabs it for himself. "What's the real problem here?"

"I just feel like I'm not contributing enough," Joshua admits.

"You contribute fine," Jeremy says. "You help the Doc." He nods at the older man sitting in the corner.

"I make sure the kids take their vitamins and no one's running a fever," Joshua protests. "I know I never actually finished med school, but I can do more than that." They both think about the week before, when Gwen returned from a supply run, three men down and one badly injured. He didn't make it; he had bleed out before they were able to even get him cleaned up enough to examine the wounds. "If I had been there when it happened…"

"I thought we agreed, no more 'ifs', isn't that what we said?" Jeremy reminds him.

"I know," Joshua sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "They're going back out tomorrow." He looks back in Gwen's direction, as she instructs her team, making preparations for the morning supply run.

"Yeah, I've asked Gwen to keep an eye out. I just need one more piece..." Jeremy says absently, but something in Joshua's voice makes him look up as Joshua stands and walks toward Gwen.

"Joshua," Jeremy calls out and Joshua turns. "Don't do anything stupid."

"Promise." Joshua offers him a tense smile and continues on to his destination.

"Joshua, is there anything you or the Doc need us to keep an eye out for tomorrow?" Gwen asks when he reaches her.

"We're running low on Paracetamol but other than that we're fine." He smiles. "I'd like to talk to you about something else though."

"Sure." Gwen nods.

"I want to come with you," Joshua says after taking a deep breath to steel himself.

"You want to come with us?" Gwen frowns. "Why?"

"Look, what happened the other week, it was unnecessary. If someone with the proper training had been out in the field with you guys, Jarrod might have had a chance to survive." Joshua looks over his shoulder at Doctor Wilson. "Doc can't go, his knees are bad, he's far too slow and he knows this, but I'm young and I'm fit, I can do it." Gwen still doesn't look convinced. "I know I didn't finish medical school and I certainly didn't have fifty or so years of practice but I'm positive I can keep someone from bleeding out before you can get them to the real doctor," Joshua says annoyed, his breath coming fast and heavy.

"Okay then." Gwen nods.

"Okay?"

"You will stay by my side considering you refuse to carry a weapon and you will do whatever I tell you to do. Do you understand?"

"I do." Joshua nods happily.

"We leave at first light." Gwen pats him on the back and walks away.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The small desk lamp above Jeremy's work station is the only light in the room. Everyone not on guard duty went to bed hours ago, except for Joshua and Jeremy.

"Does Gwen know you're wasting the generator fuel like this?" Joshua taps the lamp's shade.

"Nah, and if she finds out, I'll just tell her I had to keep the light on because you're scared of the dark," Jeremy jokes.

"You should probably sleep at some point." Even as Joshua offers this opinion he's sliding a fresh cup of coffee across the desk.  
"I'll sleep when I'm dead," Jeremy says, and then pauses. "That was...I shouldn't have said that."

"Yeah." Joshua nods.

"I just want to get this finished." Jeremy grabs the soldering iron and turns it on. "So you volunteered to go out there tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"Remember when I said not to do anything stupid?" Jeremy looks at him.

"Yeah." Joshua nods.

"That was stupid." Jeremy smiles slightly.

"I know but I can't just keep sitting here twiddling my thumbs when I could be helping," Joshua points out.

Jeremy puts down the soldering iron and stares at Joshua. "Look, I'm not going to get all girly on you, I just have something to say so I'm going to say it and then we're going to forget I said it OK?" Joshua nods. "We lived in the same building for almost two years and we barely knew each other, but now, after everything that's happened…well…your kind of all I've got left."

"Yeah." Joshua sits down next to him and then the moment passes. "So what are you going to do when it's finished? I mean what can you even use it for?"

"To communicate," Jeremy says after a second.

"With who?" Joshua frowns.

"With whoever's willing to listen." Jeremy shrugs. "I just need to prove to myself that other people out there survived, that we're not the last group of people on the planet."

"I thought all the systems were down." Joshua pulls out his now useless cell phone and double checks that he still has no service. He hasn't had any since the third day after the outbreak. He only carries the phone around because it's got pictures of Beth on it**. **The batteries had been dead long before they got to Cardiff but when Gwen gave Jeremy access to all of the equipment they'd gathered, he'd crafted Joshua a very crude solar charger.

"They're not down, the satellites are still up there, they just managed to shut down some of the land based network stations, there are redundancy systems," Jeremy corrects him. "I just have to tap into them and then find someone else who was smart enough to do the same."

"Then what?" Joshua asks. "What do you say when you find them?"

Jeremy opens his mouth then closes it again. "I don't know."

"You should probably think about that." Joshua nudges his shoulder.

"Probably." Jeremy smiles. "OK, I've already asked Gwen but she's going to be busy looking for like food and water and stuff so here." Jeremy grabs a piece of paper and starts sketching something. "This is the part I need. If you're going to go out there and risk your life, it might as well be for something important." 

**August 3, 2011**

"You've got your water?" Gwen asks and Joshua points to the canteen slung across his shoulder. "The strap is secure?" She reaches out and checks the clasp.

"It's fine." Joshua laughs. "You want to lick your fingers and smooth down my cowlick now Mum?" he jokes with her and Gwen's face softens a bit.

"A little." She smiles at him. "Did your mum actually do that?"

Joshua opens his mouth then freezes. It's like suddenly he can't remember if his mum smoothed down his cowlick, he can't remember his mum doing anything, in fact this is the first time since everything's happened that he's even thought of his mum. "My Mum…" His mind blanks. "My Mum is dead," he says frowning . "I can't remember if she…" Gwen is looking at him strangely now. "I mean she must have done right? All mums do that sort of thing don't they?"

"Yeah." Gwen nods. "Sorry about your mum."

"It was a long time ago." Joshua coughs. "Before the outbreak." He tries to remember his mother's funeral, tries to remember crying or burying her and he can't. He supposes the shock of recent events must have just caused some short term memory loss or something. When he tries to remember anything about his mum, all he can picture is a long silver chain with a hanging crystal pendant.

"Still, you know, sorry," Gwen offers lamely. "Okay, we should get going. Do you have your bag?"

"Yes, I have my…" Joshua reaches to his side and falters, his bag's not there. "I'll just go get it."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Gwen walks up and sits next to Joshua taking a large gulp of her water. "Almost packed up." Joshua nods. "It's been pretty quiet."

"Yeah." Joshua sighs.

"You sound disappointed." Gwen laughs.

"I just wanted to be useful for once." Joshua looks at his untouched first aid bag. "Couldn't even find the stupid part Jeremy needs." Joshua shows Gwen the paper Jeremy gave him the night before.

"A day without blood is a good day," she points out, clapping him on the back. "And if you want to be useful, how about you help load the last of the water." They both stand up just as Marcus, the side street look out, sounds the alarm.

"You had to say it was quiet didn't you?" Gwen asks pulling out her weapon.

"_You_ said it was quiet," Joshua protests.

"Well you agreed." Gwen smirks. "You stay by my side at all times." She takes off without waiting for a confirmation.

"Yes ma'am," Joshua promises before taking off after her. They skid to a stop when they get to the cross street. "Holy shit."

"There's nothing holy about that." Gwen grabs his arm, her face a controlled mask of terror as she stares down a hoard of infected headed straight for them. She looks back at her own men. "We're outnumbered, there's no way we can possibly…" she trails off and Joshua spins around to see another large group of infected cutting them off from the rear and trapping them in the street. Her hand slides down from his elbow to grab onto his hand, squeezing it tightly.

Joshua looks down at her hand holding his. "We're going to die aren't we?"

"We're not going to die." Gwen turns back to the other group and swallows hard. "Probably."

"You're very comforting," Joshua says his mouth suddenly dry.

A hail of automatic gunfire explodes at the north end of the street and Gwen watches as one by one the infected fall to the ground. "Hold your fire," Gwen calls out as her people raise their weapons.

"Who is that?"

"The Calvary." Gwen smiles as the line of infected is thinned enough for the shooters to get through, they're wearing camo.

Joshua smiles, he can tell Jeremy that his SAS men finally arrived, better late than never he supposes but he stops, there's something off about the uniforms. Gwen sees it too. "The vests are wrong." She steps forward. "Oh hell, it's the bloody American Calvary."

"It's think at this point we should take whatever help we can get," Joshua says.

"Good point." Gwen nods.

"Down, now." The soldier in the front line calls out and Gwen immediately drops to her knees, pulling Joshua with her. The others follow Gwen's lead and the first flank of soldiers open fire on the infected coming up behind them. The infected just keep coming though and soon it's close quarters combat. Joshua's trying to keep track of everything but it all seems to be happening in one big blur. He sees infected falling and then he sees a soldier fall. Without thinking he grabs the bag he dropped earlier and takes off running.

"Hey, by my side," Gwen screams at him.

"Sorry, I can't…" Joshua motions to the soldier lying on the ground and Gwen curses running after him. He's already gone though, sliding to a stop next to the body. There's a large gash at the top of the man's chest and it's bleeding a lot but Joshua can already tell it's a superficial wound.

"Is he okay?" Gwen asks from beside him, putting her gun away to free up her hands and offer assistance.

"He will be," Joshua says grabbing gauze out of the bag and shoving it in Gwen's hand as another soldier falls not ten feet away from them, his wound does not look so superficial. "Hold this on there until the bleeding stops. He's fine, just had the wind knocked out of him." Joshua grabs hold of the bag and moves to the other fallen soldier.

This guy has a large shard of broken glass jutting out of his thigh. Joshua reaches to pull it out then stops. "It hit an artery, didn't it?" the soldier asks. He's leaning forward looking down and his words are shaky.

"Yeah," Joshua breathes out. "I can't…there's nothing I can do."

"I know, it's okay kid." The man tries to smile at him reassuringly. "Pull it out."

"But that will just kill you." He leaves off the _faster_ because they both understand that no matter what he's going to die.

"Rather get it over with, than lay here like a stuck pig and watch my friends die around me," he jokes. "It's okay."

"Alright." Joshua wipes his hands on his pants, it's ridiculous that he's worried about them being clean but he is. He grabs the piece of glass and pulls it free. Blood gushes out of the wound like a cascading waterfall and the soldier's hand flings out grasping for something and Joshua offers his own hand. The man latches on and squeezes tight for all of three seconds before his grip goes slack and his body collapses against the pavement. Joshua looks up and sees more and more of their people, good people falling to the ground. Even with the soldiers they're completely outnumbered.

"Is he?" Another soldier comes up behind him.

"Dead." Joshua groans. The man leans forward and yanks the dead soldier's dog tags off him. "What are you doing that for?" Joshua looks at him.

"For notification purposes. So we can tell his family." Joshua raises his eyebrows asking if he honestly thinks he'll ever be able to find the soldier's parents now. "Look, I know he's dead and you know he's dead and now because I have these, someday someone else will know." Joshua gets it. It's like Charles with his list that everyone else thinks is futile, the idea that maybe someday, someone else will know.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Joshua has no idea how many stitches he's had to do, all he knows is that he's only got a few more then he's finished, everyone's sorted. They're all pretty sloppy but no one's complained so far. "Where are they?" a stern authoritative voice calls out from the entrance to the chip shop they'd turned into a makeshift triage unit.

"Back here General," another calls out. The crowd in the room thins out considerably as an older man who is obviously the boss of this group steps through. "This is Gwen, she runs a refugee shelter not far from here."

"You're more than welcome to follow us back, you and your men can rest there," Gwen offers.

"Thanks, we might just take you up on that." He holds out his hand and Gwen shakes it. "And this must be the doc who saved my men."

"Not all of them," Joshua admits as he finishes the last stitch, "I'm afraid. And I'm not a doctor, I'm a med student, well-former med student."

"Well we lost our medic two weeks ago, we'll take whatever help we can get," The General says gratefully.

"They're not out of the woods yet. There's no way to know if they've been infected or not." Joshua stands up and turns around. "You'll have to watch them for the signs. Unless they're part of the population that doesn't go crazy then they're aren't really any signs are there?" Joshua scratches the back of his neck. "Granted you'll have a 50/50 chance-why are you looking at me like that?" Joshua pauses.

Everyone turns to the General and he is in fact looking at Joshua strangely. "Are you Joshua, son?" the General asks.

"Yeah." Joshua nods slowly and the General's face breaks out into a huge grin. "What of it?"

"General Sam Lane." He holds out his hand. "I have been looking everywhere for you." Now everyone turns their attention to Joshua who looks helplessly to Gwen. She just shrugs in confusion.

Another soldier pulls out a worn piece of paper, unfolds it and holds it up. It reveals a carefully drawn sketch that almost perfectly resembles Joshua. "Holy shit it's him."

"Why exactly have you been looking for me?" Joshua hesitantly asks, eyes darting between the drawing and the General.

"I'm here to take you to America."

When Joshua gets over the initial shock of everything he's just been through, he realizes that the General means he's taking him to America now, as in right now. The soldiers escort them back to the refugee camp. They'll leave the injured behind with Gwen which he supposes will be helpful to her, once they're back on their feet.

Joshua goes over to his pallet and gathers the few possessions he's managed to keep a hold of these past few weeks, puts them in his bag and slings it over his shoulder. "You're really going with them?" Jeremy asks when Joshua breaks the news to him.

"Yeah, suppose so." Joshua shrugs. "That was the point of coming here wasn't it? Besides, they say it's important." He looks back over at the General who's waiting for him. "Oh, I managed to squirrel this away from one of the soldiers." Joshua pulls a very small chip from his pocket. "They said they weren't using it and you could have it."

"Thanks mate." Jeremy takes the chip from him.

"Hey, I've been thinking." Joshua reaches in his bag and pulls something else out. "About what you could say if you ever managed to get a hold of someone."

"What's that?" Jeremy asks taking the stack of papers from Joshua and studies it. "Is this Charles' list?"

"Yeah." Joshua shrugs. "I just thought- I don't know, I'd want to know."

"Yeah, it's a good idea." Jeremy rolls up the list and slides it in his back pocket.

"Do we hug now?" Joshua raises his eyebrows.

"Nah." Jeremy claps him on the back.

"I wish you were coming, it seems strange, doing this without you." Joshua tells him.

"They only want you." Jeremy shrugs. "Besides, I think I can actually be useful here for once in my life." Joshua smiles at him. "Just tell me one thing. What makes you so special?"

"I wish I knew." Joshua shrugs.

But the truth is, he really doesn't.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Jo slips into the Situation Room, a file folder in one hand, and nods behind her encouragingly. A man follows her into the room, shutting the door behind him. Chloe's holding the weekly status meeting. She's got her head buried in the stack of papers in front of her but it's obvious that she's still listening intently to what's being said around her. It's standing room only and Jo was supposed to be here an hour ago, so she tries her hardest not to draw attention to herself. She holds out a hand indicating for the man to stay where he is then makes her way around the room to where Chloe's seated.

"We found two more deer last night on patrol," Castiel tells her.

"Mutilated?' Chloe asks and Castiel nods. "Are we thinking demons or something else, maybe a Wendigo? Do they even come this far east?"

"We're not sure. It was outside the camera ranges so we didn't catch anything on film." Dean shrugs. "I've got Sam looking into it." He looks excited at the prospect of a good old fashioned hunt and Chloe can't blame him, she'd love nothing more than to go on a simple monster chase right now, leave all the politics and the leadership aside if just for one day.

"Keep me updated," Chloe tells him. "What else?"

"The power cut off yesterday and the water supply is starting to dry up, we got a day at the most." Victor says.

"The latrines were finished last week, all the cisterns are in place and we've managed to get one of the old wells up and running; we're working on the other one. In the meantime I think we're pretty set on bottled water," Oliver adds. He catches Jo's eye and she nods.

"Last time I checked, but I can get you the numbers if you need them," she offers.

"I don't think that'll be necessary. At least you got the generators working." Chloe looks around at the electrical equipment still functioning in her cabin.

"The generators aren't the problem," Bart counters. "Fuel is. We really didn't anticipate the amount it would take to run the camp and the vehicles."

"Okay, keep the Jeeps locked up except for emergency use only, the Kandorians are going to have to take up the slack on transportation."

"Zod's gonna love that," Oliver says with a grimace. "I can see him now bitching about how he didn't get his powers to chauffeur around a bunch of humans."

"Yeah well, he only has his powers because I gave him his powers." Chloe looks up. "If I tell him that his new job is to carry me around on his back while he makes galloping noises with a couple of coconuts, he's gonna do it and he's gonna smile."

They all chuckle at this. "Okay," Bart says through his laughter. "I would pay to watch that, but we've got a plan for the fuel shortage."

"Good." Chloe offers him her full attention for the first time that afternoon.

"Well, see…." Bart looks sideways at Victor then back at Chloe sheepishly. "Do you really need to know the details?"

"That depends; do I _want_ to know the details?" Chloe raises her eyebrows at him as Jo slips the file folder in front of her.

"No," Victor and Bart answer at the same time.

"Okay then." Chloe looks back down at the file in her hands and then up at the new face in the room. "You must be Gunnery Sergeant Knowles."

Jo nods and the man who'd followed her in the building steps forward, standing at attention. "Yes, ma'am."

"You were in Washington and volunteered to be stationed here under me?" Chloe asks.

"Yes, ma'am," he answers again.

"Let's see." She flips through his file. "It says you did two tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan. You've been awarded a Purple Heart, a Silver Star _and_ a Navy Cross."

"Yes, ma'am." He doesn't ask how or from where she obtained his file, knows better than to ask questions, he was trained by the best.

"Do you know what all of that tells me? It tells me you've seen your fair share of action and you've obvious got a good enough head on your shoulder to manage to get out of it alive." She closes the folder shut and looks up at him. "So Gunny, do you want to try and explain to me how exactly we lost control so quickly in Arizona?"

"We weren't expecting the heat, ma'am," Knowles answers her honestly.

Chloe tilts her head to study him further as if that will help explain his answer. "You weren't expecting the heat?" she asks him. "It's the freaking desert right? How could you not be expecting the heat? You weren't going on the assumption that it would be snowing were you?"

The man's jaw twitches slightly but he keeps himself in check. "No ma'am. Of course not ma'am." He coughs a bit. "We were-"

"Wait a minute." Chloe cuts him off then turns her attention back to Bart. "This plan of yours, it wouldn't happen to involve you and Victor and the theft of a very large _Federal_ fuel truck would it?"

Bart's eyes go wide and Victor just shakes his head. "How did you know that?"

"I didn't, I just know _you_." Chloe pinches the bridge of her nose and steels a glance at the tall dark haired man sitting nonchalantly in the corner wearing a pristine military uniform. He's been scribbling away in his notepad absently for the whole meeting but now he seems extremely interested in the proceedings.

"It's bad enough we've got Captain Nosey Nelly over here reporting back to Washington on our every move because you guys don't know the meaning of the word covert-"

"What!" Bart says feigning shock.

"There's no way you've forgotten the incident in Orlando last month." Chloe tells him.

Victor and Bart exchange sufficiently guilty looks. "Okay, so the reports of the Croat activity were seriously exaggerated and we finished a lot sooner than we expected, but,come on…it was completely abandoned. When would you ever get the chance to be the only person in Disney World?"

"The part where you tapped into the parks backup generators so you could ride Space Mountain fifteen times; that could have been overlooked because massive generators like that are so hard to come by. Plus, no one even knew they were there so if you'd simply brought them to us we wouldn't have cared about the massive amounts of fuel you wasted and they could have been used somewhere useful, like a hospital. But instead, you pushed your luck and overloaded the system, causing a spectacular explosion that rendered them nothing more than burning hunks of metal and made knowing my every move, Washington's new favorite past time." Chloe's voice slowly rises with every word she speaks until she's practically screaming at them. She takes a deep breath and then another. "Just…get it done and do it quietly, please."

"Yes, ma'am." They nod.

"Sorry Gunny, you were saying." Chloe turns her attention back to the Gunnery Sergeant.

Knowles looks wearily at the man in the corner before turning back to Chloe. "We were obviously expecting it to be hot but we didn't realize what that would entail, the extra water needed, the complete lack of shade or any cover of any kind and we didn't plan accordingly."

"Right." Chloe sighs. That was as much her fault as it was his. "You took how many men with you?" She flips through her pages until she finds what she's looking for.

"35, ma'am," Knowles says. "Twelve from my unit and the rest were your hunters."

"And you brought back how many?"

"Only 4, ma'am." Knowles swallows. "Including myself."

"From what I understand from your Kandorian escorts, it's a miracle any of you came back," she tells him seriously. "And the three that did owe their lives to you." He doesn't say anything to this. "Take two weeks and then report to Jo for a new assignment."

"If it's all the same to you, ma'am." Knowles takes another step forward. "My men and I would like to get back in the field as soon as possible."

Chloe looks at him for a second before nodding. "Any particular-"

"I hear they need a lot of help in New York, ma'am," he interrupts her, realizes his mistake immediately and takes a step back.

"More help than we can give them." Chloe nods. "It's a hot zone, you know that right?"

"Yes ma'am." Knowles nods again.

Jo takes this opportunity to step forward. "We've got a supply truck heading up North at 0500 tomorrow; I can fit you guys on it if you can be ready in time."

"Thank you, ma'am." Knowles steps back against the wall and Chloe dismisses him with a nod then gets up to stretch and start another pot of coffee.

"It's Lieutenant Colonel Nosey Nelly actually," someone says from behind her. "Lieutenant Colonel Archer, if you want to be more precise."

"I'm sorry?" Chloe frowns at him.

"Yes, surprisingly it's not really the Nosey Nelly comment I have a problem with. You called me a Captain. I'm a Lieutenant Colonel. You demoted me two ranks." Chloe shrugs her shoulders in a less than heartfelt apology. "But I think you know that." He tilts his head to study her. "I'm sure, with your Uncle being a career Military man, you know exactly what my rank is." Chloe didn't bother to deny it. "And considering I've been here for over a month now so does everyone else."

"Do you have a point?" Chloe asks.

"My point is this grudge you have against me is starting to get annoying. Even though you've never served a day in your life, you technically outrank me, hell you technically outrank everybody including your Uncle. I have to do whatever you tell me to do. Everyone here knows you're the boss, I know you're the boss and I'm fairly certain the President knows at this particular juncture, you're the boss. You don't want me here and I don't want to be here but the thing is, the President gave me a job to do and I serve at the pleasure of the President. But my job would be so much easier if you at least pretended to respect my presence here."

Chloe cracks a small smile. "I'm not sure I could go as far as outright respect, it's just not plausible is it?" She looks down and pretends to think about it. "How about this, I could stop publicly insinuating that you're no longer on active duty because your brain has been replaced by a bag of green JELL-O." Chloe offers.

"I will take what I can get." The Lieutenant Colonel smiles. "Do you really call me Desert Storm Ken?"

"Just the once." Chloe crinkles her nose. "Do you mind if I ask why you're no longer on active duty? It couldn't have been a voluntary thing. I'd think a guy like you would want to be out in the field, with his brothers, fighting."

"Believe me I do." He looks down and taps his leg. "I'd think a girl like you would have noticed the very sizable limp I sport these days."

"I did actually, figured it would be rude to just ask though."

"_You_ were worried about being rude?" Archer raises his eyebrows. "You who called me-what was it—oh yeah, President Meyers butt puppet, to my face last week." Chloe just shrugs. "It was an IED in Afghanistan, took out almost half of my unit. Sent me home three months before everything went down. I was assigned a desk job with Secret Service two days before the outbreak. It was supposed to be temporary."

"That sucks," Chloe breaths out.

"Yeah, it does. I don't even know if the guys in my Unit are still alive." Archer shakes his head.

"I could make a few calls for you," Chloe offers. "We managed to get a line up in the Middle East last week and I haven't had a chance to test it out yet."

"Is this your idea of an olive branch?" Archer smiles.

"This is the closest thing you'll ever get," Chloe warns him. "Hey, so the thing with the fuel truck?" Chloe asks him.

"Will not make it into my report," Archer tells her. "As far as I'm concerned it's need to know."

"And the President doesn't need to know that my people are planning on hijacking a federal fuel truck?" Chloe asks.

"The President doesn't need to know about the fuel truck, just like the President doesn't need to know about the hidden program you downloaded into the White House computer systems that allows Oracle to spy on them." Chloe lifts her head up at this. "Oh yeah, I know about that. She's got me, you've got Oracle, that way I figure you're even and everyone knows everything they need to know."

"Is this _your _idea of an olive branch?"

Archer just smiles as Chloe walks back to the table, fresh coffee in hand. "By the way, the President's not all over you because of what happened in Orlando, it's because of what happened in Washington." Bart smirks in triumph and it's Chloe's turn to feign shock. "Oh come on, you broke into a highly secure secret government facility, turned everyone's world upside down and did it with a smile on your face."

"But I brought gifts," Chloe reminds them.

"Yes, how could I forget the gift basket of holy water and special demon killing ammunition." Archer snorts.

"It's the thought that counts," Chloe brushes him off with a smile.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 

**June 25, 2011**

_"Are we absolutely sure?" Chloe asks Zod, tightening the strap that holds the sheath across her back. The area is deserted. It hadn't been when they got there but Zod and his men made quick work of the Croats and cordoned off the whole street a few blocks in either direction._

"I've double checked personally," Zod tells her annoyed. She pauses then turns to glare at him. He swallows and nods. The next time he opens his mouth, his tone is sufficiently adjusted. "Would you like me to triple check?" He doesn't wait for answer, simply flies off to do it.

"That still amazes me you know." Clark walks up softly.

"What does?" Chloe asks absently looking around to check that everyone else is in place.

"He's actually scared of you." Clark nods over at Zod who's back and instructing his people. "He has powers that even I can't imagine and he cowers at one look from you. He's scared of you."

Chloe looks up at that and turns to Zod. He stops and looks at her then turns away quickly. "He should be. I swear if we go in there guns blazing and it's full of huddled scared refugees…" She lets the treat hang in the air implied.

"What's the matter?" Clark smiles. "Don't want to frighten them?"

"Don't want to have to feed them," Chloe counters and Zod walks up before Clark can comment.

"I've triple checked. They are definitely not huddled, it looked like your standard military guard formation, and I doubt refugees would be carrying weapons of the caliber that these men are," Zod tells her with his eyebrows raised. Chloe doesn't bother apologizing; she knew he could hear the whole time. 

_"Remember we're not killing anyone unless we know they're infected." He opens his mouth to protest but shuts it again. "Disarm and disable only." He nods in understanding and turns to leave._

If someone had told her two years ago that one day she would be here, in D.C., standing on the overgrown South Lawn readying troops to storm the East Wing of the White House, she would have said they were certifiable and signed them up for therapy, but now this is her life.

"You know, there's a good chance that he did this on purpose." Dean walks up behind Chloe and she turns around confused. "Getting captured. I mean no way Sam lets anyone get the drop on him even highly trained Marines. He could have known about the others and let himself get taken to find them, to see what was going on."

"The thought has crossed my mind," Chloe agrees, her voice tight.

"Oh, he is in so much trouble." Dean laughs, fairly certain in the knowledge that whatever's happening to his brother is nowhere near as bad as what Chloe's going to do with him.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"This is Echo 1 to Delta 4, camera's down again on South Lawn, please report." Special Agent Kyle Martin stares at the bank of monitors in front of him in annoyance as he talks into the radio on his wrist. "Repeat this is Echo 1 to Delta 4, report on South Lawn." When he still receives no answer he nods to the uniformed officer by the door who nods back in the affirmative before readying his weapon and walking out of the darkened room. "Delta 4 we are sending out a scout to your location, please respond."

"Probably just a rat chewed through the line again, Sir." The officer manning the security station looks behind him.

"Or it's the damned infected again," the man says under his breath. "Better safe than sorry Corporal."

"Yes, sir." The Corporal turns back to his monitors in time to watch each feed stutter then go black. "What the…"

"Get those back online, now." Martin presses his earpiece into his ear and he doesn't hear the familiar background noise of static that he should be hearing. "This is Echo 1, all stations respond." There is nothing but dead air that greets him. "All stations respond."

"The radios are down, sir." The Corporal turns to him and swallows. "Everything's down." The silence seems to close in on them as they both begin to realize the amount of trouble they're in. As if to confirm their fears, the horrific sound of screeching metal followed by a loud boom splits through the bunker.

"What was that?" Martin asks quietly.

"I think…I mean it sounded like…but that's impossible." The Corporal swallows, visibly shaken.

"What did it sound like?" Martin asks.

"Like someone, or something just ripped the triple reinforced steel door off it's hinges," the Corporal admits.

Martin grabs the Corporal by the back of his shirt and hauls him to his feet. "Secure Eagle, let everyone know what's going on." The Corporal nods and pulls the gun from its holster as he heads down the hall.

He hears the gunshots behind him but doesn't slow. There's no doubt in his mind that they are under attack. His friends, his colleagues are likely dying but he can do nothing for them. He has a job to do, he needs to secure Eagle. He throws open the door to the back room and dives in. "We're under attack, secure the room; no one gets in. No one."

Two guards run out of the door closing it behind them. The others all stand to attention and look to the Corporal for instructions. He takes a deep breath and walks further into the room.

"Where's Eagle?" he asks the Secret Service man closest to him.

"In the back." The man looks over his shoulder to confirm this.

The Corporal nods absentmindedly assessing the situation. The bunker was supposed to be for the President and key members of the senior staff alone. The Secret Service agents and the Marines who had been drafted into protecting the President, protested violently when the suggestion was raised that the bunker could serve a dual purpose as a refugee shelter. Considering it was the President who made the suggestion, there was little that could be done.

Most didn't see the harm, they had a secure facility, they had the food, they should help those who couldn't help themselves, the Corporal was among them. Now, however, he was seeing the potential dangers of it. There are far too many people to worry about, not when Eagle isn't secure and in the end that's all that really matters, securing Eagle. Which means these people they spent so much time and effort in finding and rescuing have just become collateral damage.

The sounds of gunfire are getting dangerously close now and the people are starting to notice. "What's going on?" someone asks.

"Just stay calm, everything is under control." There is a loud thud right against the door and the Corporal swallows. The Secret Service and the Marines close ranks in front of the civilians, weapons drawn and aimed at the door. The Corporal looks down the line at each man in turn then over his shoulder at the crowd. They all nod at him. He hates giving the order but he's glad they're all in agreement, if it starts to go down the only the thing that matters is the President.

The door swings open gently and a woman walks into the room, slowly and confidently. She smiles at them all, not in the least bit concerned that there are ten weapons pointed straight at her face. "Stop, right now. Hands where I can see them," the Corporal screams at her.

She pauses, her smile somewhat amused and holds up her hands in surrender.

Chloe looks around the room but she can't seem to find the familiar face she sees once a year when the State of the Union preempts all other television programming and Bart complains for two and a half hours. She swallows, her smile slipping only slightly when she realizes that this means the President of the United States is dead.

Quickly in her head she goes down the line of Presidential Succession, cross referencing that with any familiar faces in the room. No Vice President, no Speaker of the House either. She crosses off the Secretaries of State, Treasury and Defense when she spies a familiar face, ninth in line Secretary of Agriculture, Carolyn Meyers, or rather, former Secretary of Agriculture. "Madam President." Chloe nods at a woman who is slowly making her way to the front of the crowd, pushing the others behind her. "I believe you have something that belongs to me."

Chloe takes a small step forward and hears three loud cracks merely seconds before she feels the bullets slam into her chest and she falls to the ground.

"Stop." President Meyers pushes through the line. "Cease fire." She stands in front of the group of soldiers, a barrier between them and Chloe. She looks behind her, realizing that she's too late. She looks back up at Sam whose pushing his way through the crowd and sighs. "I'm so sorry, is the woman you've been telling me about?"

Sam looks down at Chloe then up where Dean is frozen in the doorway staring at Chloe's body. "Yeah, this is her." Sam takes a step forward and sighs. "I'm getting blamed for this aren't I?"

"She is going to be so pissed at you." Dean nods his head.

President Meyers frowns at them. The Corporal walks over, bends down and checks for a pulse. He shakes his head. "I'm sorry but she's dead."

"It won't last for long." Dean shrugs it off then proceeds to smack Sam in the back of the head. "What the hell were you thinking, going off on your own? Getting captured on purpose."

One of the soldiers laughs. "Trust me, it wasn't on purpose."

"Trust me." Dean smirks. "It was."

"I'm sorry, it's just you seem to be under the impression that she's just going to wake up or something-" The President steps forward.

On cue Chloe groans from her spot on the ground. "Son of a bitch, that hurt. Did I seriously just get shot?" Dean raises his eyebrows at President Meyers and then turns, offering Chloe his hand so that she can pull herself to her feet. She's slightly unsteady at first but regains her balance rather quickly.

"That was a lot faster than last time," Sam points out.

"I know, recovery time just keeps getting shorter." Chloe looks down at the three holes in her chest, poking at them gingerly.

"So can I say it?" Dean asks and Chloe turns to him with a glare. "I told you so."

Dean had not been amused when she said she was going in first, alone. He insisted that she at least take Zod or Clark or anyone who was faster than the speed of bullets and also, you know, bullet proof. Chloe pointed out to him that she was sort of bullet proof herself. He scoffed and said the just because she could survive a bullet to the chest didn't mean she was bullet proof. 

_Chloe ignores Dean and instead turns her attention to the woman in front of her staring in shock. "I think you and I need to have a talk."_

"I think that might be for the best." President Meyers nods. "Step into my office?"

Her office turns out to be a large room in the back of the bunker. "We call this the Situation Room," she tells Chloe before offering her, Sam, and Dean a seat, then excusing herself to speak to two very severe looking gentleman standing in the corner, glaring at Chloe.

Chloe's trying her hardest to figure out what they're talking about but it's slightly difficult with Oliver annoying her. She feels a sharp tug at the skin of her chest and looks down quickly. "If you insist on this useless exercise, could you try to be a little more gentle?" Chloe glares at Oliver as he cleans the gunshot wounds.

"Could you try and not get shot all the time?" Oliver grunts under his breath.

"Once." Chloe scoffs. "This is the first time I've ever been shot." She rolls her shoulders, her chest is still tight with pressure, her muscles clenched and unmoving. "It kind of itches."

Oliver stops what he's doing and looks up at her astonished. "Itches?" He'd been shot before and he remembers felling a lot of things, most of them excruciating pain but definitely not itching. Chloe nods absentmindedly and turns her attention back on the President.

"Do you read lips?" she asks him.

"No." Oliver reaches into the bag at his feet and pulls out gauze and tape.

"I could have sworn you read lips." Chloe looks down at him.

"Not me." Oliver finishes putting the bandage on then looks up at her. "Dinah did."

"Oh, right." Chloe swallows hard.

"You seem to have forgotten just who you're speaking too," The President says tersely. "I've made the decision and that's final, there is no need for discussion," she snaps at the men in the suit and walks back toward them.

Oliver smirks. "She reminds me of someone." He steals a glance at Chloe who rolls her eyes.

Meyers sits across from Chloe and Oliver moves to bandage the exit wounds on her back. "This is Admiral Frank Richardson, the Director of National Intelligence and General Gordon Hughes, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff." Chloe raises her eyebrows slightly impressed as the two men take a seat on the President's left. A woman stumbles through the door, absently pushing her glasses up her nose before they fall off completely and winds her way around to the table. She pulls the chair out on the right side of the President and drops a notebook in front of her. She starts patting her pockets with a frown before pausing, reaching into her hair which is pilled messily on top of her head, and pulls out a pencil. "And my long suffering Chief of Staff, Eva Morales."

"Hi, sorry I'm late, there was a problem with the rations. We're…running low on a couple of things." Eva takes a deep breath, "nothing to worry about though I'm sure.

"Do you have a list?" Chloe asks her.

"Huh?"

"A list." Chloe leans forward. "Of the things you're low on?"

"Oh!" Eva flips through the pad in front of her and starts flipping through it hastily. "I swear it's in here somewhere."

Chloe turns to Oliver. "Get Zod, tell him to bring Jo here, have her check their supplies so she can figure out what they need, then tell Zod to send a few of his men out to get everything and bring it back here." Oliver nods and walks out of the room.

"You didn't have to do that," Eva sputters.

"It's the least we can do." Chloe smiles. Admiral Richardson snorts but the President ignores him so Chloe follows her lead.

"Eva could you please make us some coffee?" President Meyers asks then turns to Chloe. "I realize it's slightly below her job description but the coffee pot's been down here since the place was built, an honest to God percolator and she's the only one who can operate it."

"Two sugars and one cream?" Eva asks the President.

"One sugar and two creams." President Meyers corrects her. Eva nods hastily and turns to the men who order black. Chloe orders the same and Sam and Dean pass.

"I believe we got off on the wrong foot," President Meyers jumps right in after the door closes behind Eva.

"Yes, the shooting wasn't exactly a tickertape parade was it?" Chloe scratches at the gauze on her chest then freezes when she realizes she can feel her skin and muscles knitting themselves back together and that's what's itching. Like when your skin's scabbed over and just about ready to fall off.

"Sam was trying to explain things to me when you arrived, it all seems so fantastical but it's hardly irrefutable. He's told me about you, about what you do and I don't want us to be enemies here. I think that if we work together we can really accomplish something." Admiral Richardson snorts again and this time the President does not ignore it. "My advisors don't agree. They think I'm foolish to trust you."

"Because you don't know who this is," Richardson interrupts. "I've read your file," he tells Chloe.

"I have a file?" Chloe asks impressed.

"Her name came up daily in my security briefings for the past year. If it wasn't the FBI, it was the CIA or the ATF." He ignores Chloe and continues to talk to the President.

"I'm going to kill Bobby," Chloe mumbles under her breath. "Under the radar my ass."

Richardson continues as if she hasn't said anything. "She's amassed and extraordinary amount of weapons and ammunition. She's set herself up in an old camp in the woods in Virginia. We've been tracking shipments into the camp for the past few months; they're stocked up for years. With the supplies they have they could…I don't know ride out-"

"The Apocalypse?" Chloe asks. "Yeah that was kind of the general idea. Okay, yes, I may or may not have technically committed a few felonies but honestly you should look past that. I'm on your side here, trust me."

"Trust you? You just stormed a secret bunker and threatened the President of the United States," he screams at her. "And you say we should trust you?"

"I didn't threaten anyone and in case you didn't notice, none of the bullets that were flying around here were coming from my people. _ And let's not forget the fact that I'm the one that got shot." Chloe leans forward._

"How did you find us?" General Hughes pipes in.

"Please, bunker under the East Wing of the White House, that's like the worst kept secret in Washington," Chloe brushes the question off.

"But you knew exactly where to go," he says, his gaze not wavering from her.

Chloe contemplates being aloof but she's proffering openness and trust and to start that off with a lie, even a small one seems hypocritical. "My uncle," Chloe admits and the two men look at each other with confusion. "I'm disappointed, I thought you said you read my file. You might know him better as General Sam Lane."

President Meyers takes in the looks on the men's faces and leans back in her chair. "I take it that name means something to you?"  


"_He's a crackpot," Admiral Richardson explains. "He made up stories about demons and…" He lets his eyes move from the President to Chloe then back again. "And a demon virus," he trails off._

"Like the one that's infected over 60% of the world's population? That kind of demon virus?" The President asks, her anger barely controlled. "Are you sitting here telling me that we had prior warning of this?"

"Madam President," General Hughes jumps in. "Imagine it from our perspective. There was no way we could have possibly conceived he was telling us the truth."

"Except for the fact that my uncle is a career military man whose sole mission in life is to serve his country in the best way he possibly can." Chloe glares at the men then turns her attention to the President. "In their defense hindsight is 20/20." Eva chooses that moment to come back in the room carrying a tray with four cups of coffee. "Speaking of demonic viruses, I'm sorry Madam President." Chloe reaches into the bag at her hip and pulls out a small case. "But this is a necessary evil."

"What exactly…" The President pales slightly as Chloe extracts a very large needle.

"A test." Chloe explains. "It will let us know if you're infected. Your hand please."

"There's a test?" The President watches as Chloe pulls out an alcohol swab and cleans her index finger before pricking it quickly with the needle. "I didn't know you could test for…whatever this is."

"Croatoan. We call it Croatoan." Chloe smiles and opens a small glass vial holding a small amount of water. "And there wasn't, not until we made one." Chloe squeezes the President's finger and allows a few drops of blood to fall into the vial.

"How did you make a test for a disease that didn't even exist until six months ago?"

Chloe recaps the vial and shakes it aggressively until the blood mixes with the water. "We have a very talented doctor at our disposal who I'm almost positive hasn't slept in six months. Potassium Dichromate paper, it'll turn green if your infected." Chloe opens the vial again and takes a small strip of orange paper and dips it into the blood mixture. She shakes the excess moisture off the strip then checks her watch. After thirty seconds she looks down at the strip. The area that had been submerged into the vial is still orange.

"You're clean." Chloe turns to Oliver who slipped back in the room a few minutes before. "Check the others and make sure you use the wipes." Oliver nods and grabs the case from her after she takes out three more strips to test the others in the room. "We don't want any infections." She grabs another alcohol wipe. Chloe looks pointedly at Eva who seems surprised but sits down and offers her hand. Chloe tears a wipe open and grabs Eva's wrist to steady her hand.

"With everything going on are you really worried about something like infections from a pin prick?" Eva smiles nervously eyeing the needle.

"No." Chloe tightens her hold on Eva's wrist and quickly wipes her fingertip which immediately starts to steam. Eva screams and tries to pull away but Chloe has a tight hold on her. "I am however worried about demonic possessions." She drops the wipe and reaches for the sword at her back, sliding it from its sheath.

She has it pressed up against Eva's throat before the demon can move and hears the two men on the other side of the table cock their guns. "Give them an excuse to shoot you. His trigger finger's been itching since you walked in the door." The demon spits at Chloe, enraged.

"I can slit your throat before they can pull the trigger," Chloe warns, pressing the blade tighter against the girl's throat. "And if I'm not as quick as I think I am, what's the worst that can happen? They shoot me." She looks down at the bandage on her chest. "We've seen the good that'll do."

"What gave me away?" The demon wearing Eva's body tilts her head to the side.

"The percolator actually." Chloe smirks. "I have what I've been told is a very unhealthy , borderline addictive relationship with coffee and yet even I do not know how to work a percolator. Pretty much the only people who do are people who were born in like 1890. So either your over a hundred years old in which case I'd love to know your skin care regiment, or you're simply borrowing this body." Chloe smirks. "Plus any good assistant knows how her boss takes her coffee." Chloe looks over her shoulder and smiles. 

"_Black." Dean and Sam say together. "Almond Mocha if it's been a long day." Dean adds. _

_"I saw an opening, I took it." Eva admits._

"It's obvious you've only been inhabiting this particular body for a few weeks, maybe less. The damage you've done is likely reversible. I don't want to kill her but I will so I'm giving you a choice." The demon glared. "Leave now and I'll spare the both of you."

Eva's head slams back and a cloud of black smoke pours from her lips as Eva's body goes slack against the chair. Chloe reaches forward and checks the girls pulse. "She'll be fine in a few days, plenty of rest and fluids." Chloe turns to the President. "That was a gift for you," she informs her. "A sort of gesture of goodwill."

"What was?" The President asks still slightly in shock.

"Sparing her life," Chloe explains. "I could have killed her, I should have killed her instead I let a demon escape and I did that because it's obvious that Eva is important to you."

"Thank you."

"I'm warning you now, Eva likely wasn't the only demon we'll find but she is the only person we'll spare."

The President swallows. "I understand."

"Good." Chloe leans back in her chair. "Now we can get down to business."

They talk for hours. The men that had been calling her uncle a crackpot, are strangely more receptive and subdued after witnessing their first exorcism. She smiles, she wishes her uncle Sam could have been there so they could apologize to him. Chloe explains everything. She tells them about the seals, about Lucifer, about Croatoan and the ultimate plan for the Apocalypse. 

"_But you can stop it?" President Meyers frowns. "Sam told me you were some…" She shakes her head as if she can't even believe she's about to say this. "Messiah. That you're supposed to – this is crazy—heal God." Chloe and Dean exchange a look and President Meyers swallows before asking, "Are you…"_

Chloe lets out a breath and looks around. "Can we have the room?"

Richardson and Hughes look dubious but President Meyers nods and they make their way out, Dean and Sam behind them.

"Sam told you about the Prophecy?" At The President's nod, Chloe sighs, "I wish he hadn't done that."

"So it's true?" The President asks.

"No. Sort of. In the vein of full disclosure, there are two ways to translate it. One way says that I'm supposed to heal God, and the other says that I'm supposed to kill him." Chloe stares at the President, doesn't break eye contact, letting her know that this is real and serious.

"OK." The President just nods, she understands the significance of what Chloe has told her, of what she has entrusted her with. She takes a deep breath. "Do you plan on killing God?"

"No." Chloe shakes her head. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do or what I'm going to do or what I even can do, what I know, what I need you to know is that I…we will do everything we can to end this. We've got this- the demons, the virus, the end of the world. This is not your fight."

"So what are you saying?" President Meyers frowns at Chloe.

"I'm saying we'll leave you with whatever you need to stay safe- holy water, the right kind of ammo, but only for protection. You don't need to go out looking for trouble. We've got that, there are more important things for you to worry about."

"Like what?" She laughs humorlessly.

"Like the fact that when this is all over, this country, this planet is going to need to be rebuilt from the ground up," Chloe points out. "You should move back above ground." Chloe looks around the bunker. "It's easy enough to secure, the building was built to be its own fortress. You should stand your ground."

"Is this the demon version of 'don't let the terrorists win'?" President Meyers smiles.

"Sort of." Chloe nods.

"So I'm just supposed to defer to you? Sit back and let you fight the good fight while I twiddle my thumbs?" The President asks.

"With all due respect, six months ago you were conducting a town hall meeting on the viability of planting soy beans in defunct corn fields," Chloe snaps. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for."

"No. It was truthful." The President sighs. "I might not have the expertise that you do in this area but I do have something to contribute." Chloe frowns in confusion.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

They watch as Zod and his men help load supplies into the West Wing of the White House. "So let me get this straight, you promised her some ammo and holy water and said you'd have Victor come in and tweak their computers so they could get their communications back up, and in return she made you Secretary of Defense?" Dean asks her.

"Pretty cool huh?" Chloe says, "Did you know I'm in charge of the Army? Like all of it."

Sam laughs and shakes his head. "Yeah, the Marines, Navy, Air Force, too, even the Coast Guard."

Chloe turns to Dean and Sam excited. "I outrank my Uncle now," Chloe says with a mischievous smile.

"Cause that's the important thing here." Dean nudges her shoulder and laughs.

"There's a catch." Chloe nods over Dean's shoulder at a man in uniform currently receiving his new orders. "Because I refused to move my base of operations to Washington, I had to agree to let one of her guys into camp as a sort of liaison."

"But still, he has to call you ma'am," Dean reminds her and she smiles.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"_I hate to interrupt the trip down memory lane but I have an incoming message_," Oracle announces to the room.

"From Washington?" Chloe asks.

"_No. Point of origin is Wales. Cardiff to be more precise," _Oracle says and she sounds confused. This worries Chloe because if Oracle's confused, it's definitely not a good thing.

"Is it from the General?" Lois asks. That was where he'd said he was heading.

"_I do not believe so, no,"_ Oracle says.

"But all communications were shut down," Dean points out. "I mean I know we have an open line to Washington but other than that I thought everything else was broken."

"The satellites are still up there, it just took a while for someone else to work out how to access them." Chloe pushes her way to the front of the room. "What's the message?" she asks Oracle.

"_It is a list,"_ Oracle says, "_a very long list."_

"A list of what?" Dean asks.

"Names." Lois is standing by the printer picking up pages as they print out. "It's a really long list of names."

"They finally get communications back up and this is what they send out?" Sam takes a few pages from Lois and scans through them.

"It's the dead," Chloe says after a minute. "It's a list of the dead. They're sending out a list of the dead."

"Why?" Bart asks.

"Because they thought people would want to know." Lieutenant Colonel Archer shrugs. "Because they want to know. Because they're hoping if they send out their list, others will send out list of their own. One of the first things that went up after the towers came down on 9/11 was the missing person's board."

Everyone is quiet for a minute while page after page shoots out of the printer. "When it prints out, post it up in the Mess." Chloe sits down at the computer. "Oracle, I want to talk to whoever's sending out this message, see if they have anything else to say."

_Crying won't help you_

_Praying won't do you no good._

_Crying won't help you_

_Praying won't do you no good._

_-Led Zeppelin_


	13. The Show Must Go On

**The Show Must Go On**

_Empty spaces_

_What are we living for?_

_Abandoned places_

_I guess we know the score_

_On and on_

_Does anybody know what we are looking for?_

**November 4, 2011**

"I was wondering if I could have the day off?" Jo asks apropos of nothing. Chloe has barely had a sip of her coffee and she hasn't even had a chance to look at her list for the day. "I've just got a few more things to do and you have a really light day, Chuck can pretty much take care of anything you would have needed me to do. He's already taken over keeping track of inventory so he knows that better than me anyway."

"Have you assigned all the new people jobs yet?" Chloe asks her absentmindedly.

Jo looks down at her clipboard. "Everyone except for Father Mac. He's been busy with the chapel I haven't had a chance."

Chloe looks up and smiles slowly. "Oh, let me," she holds her hand out and Jo passes over the clipboard.

"OK." Jo says slowly. She turns to Dean confused but he doesn't look any more informed than Jo. "So is that a yes?"

"That is a yes," Chloe nods studying the clipboard intently. "Have a fun day planned with Jason?" Jo freezes and slowly turns around. "He got back last night, asked me for a free day today, I can put two and two together." Jo still looks like a deer caught in the headlights. "You could have told me you know, I'm not going to punish you or forbid from seeing him. I can't actually forbid you to see him, you do realize that?"

"I do," Jo says slowly. "I mean I figured you of all people didn't care about fraternization-" She cuts her eyes to Dean and stops cautiously.

"What gave you that idea?" Chloe laughs.

Jo cuts her eyes to Dean once more. "You're not very open about…" Jo's whole face is turning a very unattractive shade of red. "I just wasn't sure what your policy on public displays of affection was." she swallows hard and Chloe closes her eyes and shakes her head.

"Jo, as long as you're not doing it on my desk in front of me, I don't care what or who you do is that clear?" Jo nods quickly. "Also what I do is my own business and I choose to keep it private for my own reasons."

"Yes, ma'am, of course," Jo walks over to the computer and starts typing.

"Well that was incredibly awkward," Dean walks over, trying to break the tension and it works slightly, Chloe cracks a smile. "So why are you so keen on assigning Father Mac a job?" Chloe looks up and her smile turns evil. "Why do I not like that look?"

Chloe is about to answer him when the door creaks open. Jason's head slowly peaks around the corner; it's obvious he's trying to be stealthy. "Good Morning Jason," Chloe calls out loudly and when he spots her, he smiles sheepishly and pushes the door open all the all the way. "Won't you come in?"

Jason steps through the door, hands in his pockets. "Hey, Chloe, Dean," Dean nods a hello.

"Jo's got a few things to finish up then she's all yours. You are more than welcome to wait. May I offer you some coffee?" Chloe smiles at him.

"No thank you." Jason crosses the room and sidles up to Jo.

It's quiet for a while as Chloe looks over her morning reports and Dean pretends to look over the morning reports. Jo and Jason's conversation is like a low murmur in the background until suddenly it stops all together. Chloe frowns when suddenly Jo whispers, slightly louder than before, "I'm not telling her."

"_I'm_ not telling her," Jason counters. "You're her assistant," he argues, his voice low and wary.

"And I'd like to stay her assistant by staying alive." Jo shakes her head. Chloe looks up at Dean confused. He's obviously hearing the same thing she is because he shrugs and stands up. Chloe follows his lead.

"She won't kill you she likes you." Jason shakes his head. "You have to tell her."

"Tell me what?" Chloe asks from right behind Jo's shoulder. It startles Jo so much she actually jumps a little, shoving the papers in her hands at Jason who grabs them in surprise. Chloe raises her eyebrows and holds out her hand. "What's that?"

Jason looks down at the papers in his hands but he can't seem to get a good enough grasp on the English language to give her an answer. "This week's list," Jo bites her lip grabbing the papers from Jason and handing them to Chloe.

When they'd finally managed to get in touch with the guy in Cardiff who sent out the initial list of the dead, Chloe offered her help and between her and Oracle they'd managed to set up a site, , where anyone who wanted could upload their own lists. Then once a week they would all be compiled and sent out to whomever was listening.

"And what's so important about this week's list you think I'm going to kill you?" Chloe looks down at the pages in her hands.

"Page two, first column, sixth from the bottom," Jo answers, her voice barely a whisper.

Chloe frowns and flips to the second page, sees the first column and counts six up from the bottom. Her finger freezes on a name and Dean squints to read it. "Gabe Sullivan?" He looks at Chloe confused. "Is he-"

"My dad." Chloe drops the papers to the table and forces herself to take a few calming breaths.

"Maybe it's a mistake." Dean offers.

"It's not," Chloe shakes her head. "He was working in a refugee camp in Brussels. I talked to him two weeks ago. He was telling me about a supply run they had coming up, straight into Croat territory. I was almost expecting this." She laughs weakly. Dean isn't sure exactly what to say in this situation so he says nothing. She pushes past him to the door. "I've got a training session with Alia." Chloe calls as the door to the cabin slams behind her.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

It takes less than two hours for the news to spread through the entire camp so when Chloe finally walks into the mess for breakfast with Alia at her side everyone stops talking to look at her. "What is going on?" Alia asks confused.

"Either I have something on my face, or it's because my dad died." Chloe deadpans and turns to Alia who checks her over briefly.

"There is nothing on your face." She says matter-of-factly before walking off to grab her food.

"Must be the dead dad then." Chloe takes a deep breath and walks over to the line to grab some coffee. She stares at the food laid out in front of her but nothing looks appetizing. The mere thought of trying to eat something makes her stomach recoil but she grabs the plate of toast and eggs that Martha passes to her.

"Chloe." Martha smiles at her but somehow knows that's all she needs, or possibly all she can handle because she simply goes back to work, and for that Chloe is very grateful. The room is still completely silent as Chloe makes her way to a table and sits down. She pushes the plate away from her, the smell making her nauseous. She manages to swallow a sip of coffee before Lois sits down across from her. Chloe is dreading this.

"Yes?" Chloe looks up and Lois smiles sadly at her.

"I was thinking we could have it tomorrow," Lois offers.

"Have what tomorrow?" Chloe set her mug down.

"The memorial," Lois says.

"What memorial?" Chloe shakes her head.

"Gabe's." Lois explains confused.

"Oh. No, thank you." Chloe goes back to her coffee.

"What do you mean?" Lois frowns. "No thank you?"

"I mean we're not going to have a memorial." Chloe picks up her fork for lack of anything better to and takes a bite, but she can't taste a thing. "So thanks but no thanks."

"Chloe, you can't just push this aside, pretend that it never happened. You have to deal with this." Lois says annoyed.

"I am dealing with this Lois, I'm dealing with it my way and I'm hoping you can respect that." Chloe puts her fork down and glares, grabbing her coffee. She gets up and heads for the door.

Lois stands but doesn't follow her. "Your dad died." Lois calls over the tables at her and the room freezes. Lois falters slightly at the sudden attention she's drawn to herself but she keeps on. "Your dad died and you need to have a memorial, you need to grieve for him."

Chloe looks across the room at her cousin, pain and anger shining in her eyes. She heads back toward Lois then changes direction and walks to the board. She tears off the list that Jo posted that morning and starts reading. "Brian Darden, Suzanne Tucker, Colleen Rodd, Kenneth Price…"

"Chloe." Lois steps forward and Chloe looks up, glaring at her, stopping her in her tracks.

"Lauren and Tim Nichols," Chloe continues, "Curt Gilliam, Dale Macias, there are…five more pages." Chloe counts them. "Three columns each," she angrily throws the list at Lois and the pages fall to the ground. "They're all dead too. _They_ were someone's fathers, someone's mothers and brothers and sisters and children." Lois winces. "Why does my father deserve a memorial more than them?"

"That's not what I meant," Lois argues as Chloe walks closer to her.

"I can't grieve for my dad, Lois because if I grieve for him, I have to grieve for all of them and frankly I don't have the time." Chloe storms out of the room as Lois bends down and picks up the pages.

Chloe barely makes it out of the mess before she has to stop walking because she can't breathe. Her vision is swimming and she's angry and upset. She's got so many emotions swirling around inside of her it's like there's no room for anything else, especially oxygen. She collapses against the wall of the building, sucking in air as fast as she can but that just makes things worse.

"Chloe!" Dean calls, grabbing her shoulders, and her head snaps up. Her vision is still swimming and it takes a second to clear. When it does, and she can see his face, he looks worried. "I've been calling your name for five minutes."

"I'm fine." She shrugs away from him, pushing herself off the wall. "I need—I've got to see Father Mac." Chloe starts to walk away.

"Good." Dean smiles sadly at her. "That's good." Chloe turns and gives him a strange look. "That's not good?" Dean asks confused as Chloe slowly begins to smile.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"This is the Armory," Chloe says ten minutes later opening the door and allowing Father Mac to step in ahead of her. Dean slips in behind them, pretty sure that nothing good can come of this.

"And why are we here again?" Father Mac asks Chloe cautiously.

"Well, everyone who lives at the camp works at the camp. Those are the rules." Chloe informs him.

"I was under the impression I would be working in the chapel, in a _spiritual_ capacity." He looks over at Dean for help but gets a shrug for his trouble.

"Yes, well I'd much rather you work in a _useful_ capacity." Chloe tells him and typical of a man of the cloth, he disregards the jibe at him and turns the other cheek. "The spiritual wellbeing of my people comes in far behind the physical wellbeing of my people, I'm sure you can understand that."

"I do understand." Father Mac nods solemnly. "Well, working in a church required me to thrown many potluck suppers. I suppose I could be of some help in the kitchen."

"I was thinking you'd be more help in here." Chloe looks around the room, more than slightly satisfied with herself. Bobby is ignoring the goings on as best as he can but Lucas has looked up with interest by now.

"You want me to work here? With the weapons?" Father Mac asks, staring at what he's pretty sure is a rocket launcher leaned casually in the corner. Chloe nods. "And what purpose do you think I could serve in this place?"

"Actually you'd be really helpful." Lucas speaks up and Father Mac turns his attention to the boy. "The ritual we have to do to turn a regular weapon into a demon killing weapon is pretty involved and it seems to help if you have a certain…affinity with the occult."

"Are you calling my dedication to God an "affinity with the occult"?" Father Mac looks at him astonished.

"Well it kind of is." Lucas stutters. "I mean a normal person can make holy water with the right ritual but a priest can just…bless the water."

"Because he's been endowed with that power by the Lord our God." Father Mac explains.

"Exactly." Lucas nods excited. "Our process would go much faster with that power behind it."

"I see." Father Mac turns to Chloe who has a huge smile on her face. "You understand that the demons you use these weapons on are inhabiting human bodies don't you?"

"I do." Chloe nods.

"And you understand that there is still a person inside of that body? It may be bound, it may not be in control, but it is in there and it is innocent." He points out. "You are asking me to create a weapon that will be used to kill an innocent human being."

"I'm asking you to create a weapon that will kill a demon. A demon who is unfairly inhabiting that human body, which in all likelihood is already dead."

"You can't know that." The priest protests.

"_If_ the demon is careful, the human body can withstand a few months of the intrusion and these guys are being anything but careful. They know if they wear one body out they can always jump into another one. Meanwhile the people of the bodies they're using are in there, suffering, every day, every second the demon is in there. We're doing them a favor."

"By killing them?" Father Mac snaps at her.

"They're already dead. They're nothing anymore." Chloe yells then takes a deep breath. "The Hollow Men." She whispers, something in her softening, just a bit. _"Our dried voices, when we whisper together, are quiet and meaningless…Shape without form, shade without color, paralyzed force, gesture without motion…"_

Dean coughs, drawing the priest's attention to him. "She does that sometimes. It's a poem."

"T.S. Elliot." The priest swallows. "I know it well. What if they aren't dead? What if they fight, what if they hold on? How do we repay courage like that? With death?"

"It's for the best." Chloe says to him in the tone of voice that Dean has come to know means the subject is closed. "Lucas will tell you what you need to do."

"And if I refuse?" Father Mac asks her.

"There's a refugee camp in DC. I'm sure they could use a man of the cloth," Chloe starts to walk out. There's a pile of 9mm bullets on the table and Chloe pauses. She picks one up, studying it for a second before turning and dropping it in Father Mac's palm. "You can start with this." The two of them stare at each other before Chloe turns and walks away. Dean offers the priest an apologetic smile and hurries after her.

"That back there, was completely unnecessary and you know it. It's like you're testing him or something." Dean pulls up beside her and she stops, turning to him amused. "You're testing him?" He asks her incredulous.

"It's just a little test." Chloe protests, truly not understanding why Dean is so upset by this as she continues on her way to the cabin.

"It's an impossible test, one he can't even hope to pass." Dean catches back up with her and grabs her arm, halting her movement. "If he passes he fails." Chloe just raises her eyebrows at him. "If he makes the bullets he's a bad priest, if he refuses, he's a bad soldier."

"I don't see any reason why he can't be both." Chloe jokes but obviously it's the wrong time because Dean doesn't seem amused. "Oh come on, if he's smart, he'll figure it out." She can see Chuck making his way toward her from across the camp.

"Figure what out?" Dean asks her. "Ever since he got here you've been on him for something or other, I get that you have some sort of problem with the guy."

"I have no problem with him, he seems like a genuinely nice guy." Chloe counters. "It's his boss I have the problem with."

"You've got a problem with his faith." Dean corrects her and she thinks for before nodding, that's accurate enough. "But don't you get it, it's _his_ faith. It has nothing to do with you."

"It has everything to do with me." Chloe argues. "If he's going to stay here, if he's going to be a part of my team, I need to know that when it comes down to it he's going to follow my lead, not God's. I need to know that I can trust him to do what needs to be done even if it's not necessarily the right thing to do."

Dean takes a deep breath. "You could have gotten that point across differently if you wanted to. You did it this way because this way it's fun for you," Dean accuses her.

"You think this is fun for me?" Chloe asks him. "None of this is fun. I'm not enjoying any of this." Her voice is raising now and Chuck pauses a few feet away, not daring to get closer. "We're in the middle of a war, why is it that I'm the only one who seems to realize this."

"I know that." Dean snaps. "We all know that Chloe."

"Then start acting like it." Chloe screams at him and it seems to echo through the whole camp. "I can't afford to be patient; I can't afford to be nice all the time. I don't have time to huddle in the corner and cry. Sometime's I've got to be harsh, sometimes I've got to be blunt and sometimes there are going to be lessons that people just have to learn whether they, or I, like it." She's panting now, her fists clenched at her sides.

"If this is about your dad—"Dean starts.

"It's not about my dad, it's not—it has nothing to do with my dad." Chloe says frustrated. Chuck takes a tentative step closer and Chloe snaps at him without even looking in his direction. "What do you want?"

Chuck freezes again. "Dr. Emil sent me to get you. He's running low on medical supplies." Chloe closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "It sounded kind of important."

"I'll be right there." Chloe says, not taking her eyes off of Dean. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped at you."

"It's not me you need to apologize to." Dean tells her stiffly. "You should probably go," he nods at Chuck. "It sounds important."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe doesn't make it back to her cabin until much later that night and she's surprised to say the least when she sees Dean sitting in front of Oracle staring at something on the screen. _"You can move the seven of hearts onto the eight of clubs."_ Oracle says.

"I see it." Dean grumbles moving the card.

"Solitaire?" Chloe asks amused, stepping into the room.

Dean turns quickly. "I wouldn't exactly call it solitaire," he rubs the back of his neck. "Oracle can't seem to grasp the concept."

"_I am only trying to help_." Oracle tells him.

"Did you get things cleared up with Emil?" He asks ignoring the computer.

"Yeah." Chloe nods. "It's nothing special. Gauze, tape, antibiotics, aspirin. We'd been so worried about the big stuff we didn't think about the everyday medical supplies. We should be able to get everything at the local hospital."

"We?" Dean raises his eyebrows at her.

"I'm going to take a team out tomorrow." Chloe looks over at him. "It won't take more than a few hours to get everything. It'll be a piece of cake."

"You're going out?" Dean asks her.

"I haven't left the camp since we went to Washington. I think getting out would be good for me."

"Maybe." Dean shrugs. "Did you talk to Father Mac?"

Chloe stills. "No." She tells him defiantly.

"Ok then." He turns back to the computer and closes the program. "I guess I'll see you sometime tomorrow. Think I'm going to stay in my cabin tonight."

"Oh." Chloe straightens up surprised. "Right, ok. Did you want to come with us tomorrow on the supply run?"

"I'll pass." Dean shakes his head. "You said yourself it would be a piece of cake. I think you can handle it on your own."

Chloe just stares as he walks out letting the door close behind him. She ignores it, pushing herself off the edge of the table and toward the bedroom. She stops in the doorway, staring at the bed, the huge empty bed and swallows hard. Spinning on her heals she heads for the door of the cabin. She hasn't slept alone in over a year and tonight she's not sure she can handle it.

Her feet carry her across the camp, trudging through the woods, around the lake, without any real sense of direction. It isn't until she's made it to her destination that she even realizes where she was headed the whole time, the chapel. The building itself looks no different than what it used to be, a old unused boat house, except the very large steeple affixed to the top of the roof line. She hasn't bothered to come check it out since Father Mac started fixing it up. He's done a good job, the paint is fresh, the window panes unbroken and clean, and the rotten wooden steps have been replaced.

She takes a deep breath, climbs the steps and opens the door. It's completely empty inside, no one needing any emergency spiritual guidance at this hour, no one but Chloe. Despite its intentions, the building seems cold and uninviting to Chloe. She feels as if she doesn't belong here, shouldn't be allowed in but she forces herself to lift her feet and step inside.

There are rows of pews lined up on either side of an isle that goes right down the middle of room, drawing your eyes down it to rest upon a simple alter set up with various religious artifacts that Chloe vaguely recognizes from the few times that Jimmy dragged her off to church with him. Behind the alter, staring down at her is a rather large crucifix. She doesn't know where it came from, doesn't even know how they got it in the building. It almost looks as if they built the chapel around it. Jesus is hanging limply from the cross, ribs protruding from waxy colored skin, blood dripping from his hands and feet and the cut on his left side. The crown of thorns that lies atop his head is visibly pushing into the skin, puncturing it in some places. He's looking to the sky, his facial expression a mixture of hopelessness and thankfulness that Chloe can relate to far too well. There is a sign above his head, the letters INRI which Chloe somehow remembers standing for, _Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum_ or Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews.

She turns away from the cross, unable to look at it any longer for some reason. Her eyes roam around the room until she spies a little table in the corner. It's practically overflowing with small glass votive candles, a few of them lit. This table she's more familiar with and a memory comes unbidden to the front of her mind.

_Jimmy had dragged her to church again. She was still barely awake. They'd been running late and hadn't had time to make coffee and Jimmy wouldn't let her stop at Starbucks because according to him you didn't bring coffee to church. Apparently it was in the bible somewhere. When Mass was over he got up like he always did and walked over to the small table covered in votive candles that sat nestled in the corner of the chapel. He lit a single candle, bowed his head in prayer and then stood, dropping a few dollars into the box on the side of the table. _

"_What's that for?" Chloe finally asked him that day. She'd always wondered but never really had the courage to delve into his faith. She always felt like it was something personal, something that was Jimmy's, something that she had no right to. _

_"Just a prayer." He shrugged._

"_And the candle?" _

"_Some people light a candle for the dead, others light a candle for the person they're praying for." Jimmy explained. _

"_Who were you praying for?" Chloe frowned at him and he smiled and placed a kiss on the top of her head. _

"_You." _

Chloe grabbed thin wooden stick as she'd seen Jimmy do so many times and lit it from another candle. She moved the flame over to an unlit candle and caught the wick; one for Jimmy. She pauses, debating something internally then lights another candle, one for her dad. She blows out the stick and sets it on the table top. She tears her eyes away from the flame and looks once again at the large crucifix, moving slowly until she is standing directly underneath it. "How did you do it?" She asks him. "How did you handle the pressure? Everyone was expecting you to save them, looking to you to have all the answers and you never cracked, you never wavered. You were so sure. How did you do it?"

"With a little bit of faith and quite a lot of patience." A voice says from behind her. She turns around, instinctively defensive and relaxes only slightly when she sees it's Father Mac. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's fine." Chloe assures him.

"Were you looking for me?" Father Mac steps forward a bit. "I'm assuming that you didn't come in here to talk to him." He nods in the direction of the crucifix.

"No, I…" Chloe shakes her head. "Dean thinks I should apologize to you."

"What do you think?" Father Mac moves over to one of the pews and sits down. Chloe follows his lead.

"I think Dean's overreacting." Chloe says. "I don't think I have anything to apologize for."

"So you're not here to apologize then?" Father Mac steals a look at her.

Chloe pauses for a minute, thinking about it then shakes her head. "No, I'm not."

"Good." Father Mac smiles decisively and Chloe feels as if she's the one whose just been tested and she's just passed. "I understand why you did what you did Chloe. I could have done without the theatrics but…you are responsible for the lives of everyone in this camp and so many more besides. You need to know that the people you rely on aren't serving two masters."

"And?" Chloe asks him hopeful. "Do you serve two masters?"

"I have pledged my life in service of God and his teachings, the fact that he is…temporarily displaced does not waver my loyalty." Father Mac says and Chloe deflates slightly. "However, I believe, even if you do not, that what you are doing here is God's work and to serve you is to serve him. So, as long as it is in within my power, I will do whatever you ask of me."

"And what if I ask you something that doesn't fit into your ideals, that doesn't fall in line with God's teachings?" Chloe asks him. "What happens then?"

"I hope you never have to ask but I am not so naive to think the situation impossible." Father Mac concedes. "I can't answer that question now; I may never be able to answer that question until the situation arises. All I know is at the end of the day you have to make your own choices because you and you alone are the one who will have to live with the consequences."

**November 5, 2011**

"He didn't even tell me to be careful." Chloe mumbles under her breath as she picks the lock on the Buena Vista hospital pharmacy. She'd managed about an hour of shut eye after falling asleep at her keyboard around three. She didn't see Dean at breakfast, only caught a brief glimpse of him coming out of the cabin he shares with Sam as she was climbing into the Jeep. He'd made a habit of telling her to be careful and giving her a kiss goodbye after that first time and Chloe always found it slightly annoying before. But it had become something of a ritual, and without it, without that one stupid little thing, it almost felt as if everything else was off balance.

"What?" Jason looks over his shoulder at her.

"Nothing." Chloe sighs as she catches the tumbler with the paper clip and the lock unhinges. She stands up and grabs her bag, walking into the room.

"So, I'm sorry about your dad." Jason calls from where he's sifting through the receptionist's desk.

It takes Chloe by surprise because he's actually the first person to say that, to apologize to her. "Thanks." Chloe swallows hard trying desperately to keep breathing.

"Losing a parent—it sucks." Jason offers.

"It really does." Chloe nods dumping whatever she can find in her bag, figuring Emil can sort through it later.

Just when it seems that the atmosphere might be getting a bit heavy Jason cuts the tension. "Oh, score." He yells excited.

"Antibiotics?" Chloe looks out from the supply closet hopefully.

"Better." Jason holds up a small black thing. "Nintendo DS." He shakes the hand held game at Chloe in triumph.

"I understand the thrill of playing Mario Kart on the small screen, trust me but at the moment I'm a bit more worried about making sure we've got enough antibiotics and painkillers on hand." Chloe points out.

"I know, I'm totally on top of that." Jason holds up his own bag and shakes it, letting her hear the bottles clang together. "It's just, Lucas' birthday is next week and a few years ago he got one from mom and dad, the last thing they ever gave him actually and I sort of broke it last year in Middleton. He didn't talk to me for two weeks."

"_Chloe we've got a situation on the east side._" The radio on her hip squeaks with Clint's voice. "_Croats_."

"On my way." Chloe looks over at Jason who's already moving to the door. "I've got this, you finish up in here then meet me at the Jeep." She passes over her bag and heads out the door.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe makes her way cautiously into the room where Clint had said there were Croats. It looks like a lab of some sort, there's a large table in the middle of the room with equipment on it, microscopes, a centrifuge, some broken glass that probably used to be beakers, but Chloe notices a distinct lack of anything helpful in the room. There's no gauze or bandages or antibiotics, medicine of any kind either, so she's having a hard time understanding why Clint was even in this room in the first place.

Her question is somewhat answered when she hears the door close behind her, hears the lock click into place and she freezes on the spot, turning around. "Hey, Clint." She says slowly.

"Hey, Chloe." He tilts his head to the side, a somewhat crazed look in his eyes. Before she can ask him why exactly he felt the need to lock them in the room he's got his gun pulled from his waistband and aimed at her head. He walks over to her slowly, pulls her gun out of her waistband and her sword from the sheath at her back and tosses them to the other side of the room. Chloe cringes when she hears the clang of the sword hitting the floor. Clint then reaches around her and pulls out her radio shutting it off and tossing it behind him as well.

"So there are no Croats." Chloe makes another quick examination of the room and finds it is in fact just the two of them.

"Not anymore." Clint nods his head to the left and Chloe strains to see over the lab table. Lying on the other side are two dead bodies, obviously infected if the filthy clothing and unkempt hygiene is anything to go by. "Tried to get the drop on me when I got here but they were easy enough to deal with. Then I got to thinking, they would make the perfect cover story."

"Perfect cover story for what exactly?" Chloe asks cautiously.

"Your murder."

"Right." Chloe nods. "Sure, it's just—"

Clint frowns at her annoyed. "What?"

"Well I'm assuming the plan is to shoot me then blame it on the Croats. Your story will probably be that they managed to wrestle the gun away from you, then somehow had the presence of mind to figure out how to work it and shot me, but you got the gun back and killed them? Is that about right?" Chloe asks and Clint nods. "The thing is no one's going to believe that."

"Why the hell not?" Clint barks at her.

"Look at them, it's obvious they've gone feral." Chloe edges closer to the Croats. "There's no way they'd manage to shoot a gun, they can't even manage to _not _piss themselves."

"No one's going to worry about that." Clint shakes his head. "Because you'll be dead."

"OK, OK, so we've covered the 'how', what I'm still a little confused on is the 'why'." Chloe takes a deep breath, subtly trying to force Clint to do the same.

"Why? You want to know why? Did you think you could get away with it?" Clint asks her. "Did you think no one would find out?"

"Find out what?" Chloe asks him confused.

"What you're going to do." Clint sneers at her and recognition slowly dawns on Chloe's face. "Yes, I know, I know all about your plan to kill God."

"OK, Clint, listen to me because this is very important." Chloe edges slightly closer to him. "There is no plan, I'm not planning on killing God, I don't _want _to kill God."

"Don't try to deny it." Clint angrily stabs the gun in her direction. "I know about the prophecy, I know what it really says."

Chloe takes a step back and another deep breath. "I'm not denying that there's a prophecy. I'm not even denying that it can be interpreted in a way that suggests I might, in fact, kill God." Clint smiles smugly at her and Chloe raises her hands. "But, that's not the whole story ok. There are two sides to every story and there are two ways that you can read this prophecy."

"Just stop, stop lying, stop pretending that you're one of the good guys, I know better ok." Clint shakes his head at her. "You never fooled me you know. From the moment I first saw you, I knew."

Chloe pauses at this statement. "You knew before you came to camp." She says slowly and looks at him. "This is _why_ you came to camp."

"Huh. You actually are as smart as they say you are." Clint snaps at her. "Of course this is why I came to camp why else would I have come? Do you think I wanted to take orders from you? To be with the people who started this whole mess in the first place? Oh yes, I know about Sam and Dean and the seals, I know everything." He laughs manically at her.

"How?" Chloe asks cautiously. "How exactly do you know all this?"

Clint offers her a smug smile. "You didn't think you were the only one who talked to angels did you? A few months before I came to the camp I got a visit from a man who said he was the Angel Zachariah, that he was a messenger of the Lord and that he had a very important job for me to do." Clint explains. "He told me about the Winchesters, how Dean started it all, stepping off the rack in hell and torturing innocent souls, how Sam finished it when he killed Lilith."

"Those were accidents." Chloe says helplessly.

"Accidents?" Clint laughs. "He told me, he told me how the angels tried everything to stop it, how they tried to stop the seals from breaking but when they couldn't they told Dean that he could fix it, that he could end it. All he had to do was allow Michael to take over his body, that Michael was the only one who could stop Lucifer and Dean refused, flat out refused."

"Did he also tell you that if Dean says yes, if Dean lets Michael in and he fights Lucifer, that's it, endgame earth. The battle will torch half the planet and millions of people will die." Chloe yells at him.

"Millions of people are already dead." Clint argues. "Look around, would it have been any worse than this?"

"Look Michael is not an option ok, it never was and it never will be but I can end this." Chloe tells him.

"Why? Because Castiel says you're our Messiah?" Clint asks her. "A Messiah sent to us to kill God."

"I'm not supposed to kill God, I'm supposed to heal him." Chloe says desperately.

"You don't even believe that." Clint whispers to her. "I can see it in your eyes."

Chloe takes a deep breath and stares straight into his eyes. "Well the angels do," she tells him. "Your precious angels-you think they're innocent in all this. Who do you think orchestrated this whole thing? Do you honestly believe that they couldn't have ended this before it began if they really wanted to? They wanted Dean to break the first seal, they wanted Sam to break the last seal. They wanted Lucifer free."

"No, shut up." Clint says, his eyes are darting around frantically, he's getting more and more desperate with every word Chloe says.

"They wanted this, to wipe the world clean and start from scratch in _their_ image, not Gods." Chloe keeps talking. She tries to keep her face neutral, she can see the door knob jiggling behind Clint.

"No, they want to stop you, they want you dead, while the demons are doing everything in their power to keep you alive." Clint tells her.

"Of course they are. See the demons think I'm going to kill God and that works out perfectly for their plans. Now the angels, well, see they want God out of the way too, but they believe that I'm going to heal him, and that definitely does not fit into their plans. They've gone rogue Clint, they're not on God's side anymore, it's every man or rather angel for himself out there now." The knob turns all the way and the door creeps open a crack. Jason peeks through and stops when he sees Clint, his gun aimed at Chloe's head.

"No, Castiel's the rogue one, he's the one that's gone against God." Clint rants. Chloe tries to convey a message to Jason, using her eyes to indicate that she has the situation under control and if Jason just leaves, Chloe can handle it. Jason nods in the affirmative and Chloe relaxes, at least she doesn't have to worry about him as well.

But then Jason stands up abruptly and slings the door open, slamming it against the wall as he struts into the room. "Hey Clint, what's up with the gun?"

"What are you doing here?" Clint spins around in surprise aiming the gun at Jason.

"Yes, Jason, what are you doing here?" Chloe asks him through clenched teeth.

His eyes open wide and he stares at her confused. "You _told_ me…with the eyes…it was a signal right?"

"Yes, to go away." Chloe groans in frustration.

"Well I'm sorry, I'm not really up on my cryptic eye movement codes." Jason snaps at her. "I was trying to help."

"Great help too." Chloe points out. "Now we're both being held hostage."

"Hey!" Clint snaps at this. "Look, Jace I've got no beef with you. Just walk away and forget you were here and everything will be fine. I don't want to hurt you."

"Yeah but see, it's obvious that you want to hurt Chloe, and I just can't let that happen." Jason swings the bag hanging at his side in an arc right at Clint's temple. It knocks Clint off guard, splitting the bag at the seams and pill bottles go flying in every direction. Clint starts to fall to the ground, but not before, in a panic, he manages to pull the trigger.

"Jason!" Chloe screams, running to his side as Clint's head slams into the edge of the desk and he falls to the floor. When Chloe reaches Jason his left hand is in a white knuckled grip on his right arm, blood is dripping through his fingers and his face is pale white.

"I'm fine, I'm ok." He swallows hard. "It's just a flesh wound. A flesh wound that's seriously bleeding."

"Let me see." Chloe pries his hand away. She grips the edge of his shirt sleeve and pulls, ripping it at the seam and allowing her access to the wound.

"That was really hot." Jason smiles weakly at her.

"You're delirious from blood loss so I won't tell Jo you said that." Chloe smirks up at him as she grabs what she needs out of the bags they filled earlier, taking her time to relieve an unconscious Clint of his weapon.

"So, what the hell was all that about?" He nods over his shoulder at Clint.

"He…got some bad information." Chloe shakes her head and begins to stitch Jason's wound as best as she can. "I told you to finish up in the pharmacy then meet me by the Jeep, do you remember that?"

"You weren't answering your radio." Jason points out wincing in pain as the needle slides through his already tender skin.

"It doesn't matter, I gave you an order. When I give you an order I expect you to follow it. Do you understand?" Chloe asks.

"Yes ma'am." Jason smirks at her.

"That being said…thanks." She offers him a small smile. "You should know however that I had a plan." Chloe points out.

"Really? What was it?"

"Well I was going to just…you know, let him shoot me and then—"

"Let him shoot you?" Jason asks his eyes wide.

"Come on, it's not like it would have done any damage." Chloe scoffs.

"Yeah ok, cause you're invincible." Jason rolls his eyes at her and Chloe stops and just stares at him a second. "Oh, wait, you're being serious. So then, the stories are true?" He sits up straighter. "So the sword thing…and getting shot in Washington?"

"You think I just made them up?" Chloe asks.

"I thought they were just exaggerations, you know a way to make you seem….scarier." Jason shrugs.

"Why would I need to be scarier?" Chloe glares at him.

"Yeah ok, good point." Jason laughs.

"Jo's gonna kill me." Chloe inspects her amateur sutures and Jason looks down at it.

"Nah, that's totally gonna scar and chicks dig scars." Jason pulls himself to his feet.

Chloe nudges Jason in the shoulder and pulls herself to her feet. "Get the radio, call for back up then help me clean up this mess." She looks around at the pill bottles scattered all over the floor of the room.

"Yes ma'am." Jason offers her a mock salute.

"While we're at it, we should probably tie up—"she spins around and freezes. "Clint." She swallows as the man in question is standing in front of her, a crazed look on his face. He's holding a very long hunting knife in front of him and there's blood dripping from the cut on his head into his eyes.

Before Chloe can even form a thought in her head she feels fingers wrap around her wrist and pull her quickly back and then she can't see anything but the broad expanse of Jason's back. "Look." Jason is saying to Clint. "I have absolutely no idea what's going on here, what beef you may have with Chloe but I'm telling you right now, you want her, you're going to have to go through me."

Chloe tries to move Jason out of her way but he's holding her wrist in an iron grip at a very odd angle and she can't seem to get herself free. "That's fine by me." Clint says, lunging forward, sliding the knife hilt deep into Jason's gut. "I said I didn't _want_ to hurt you." Clint says twisting the knife slightly before pulling it out. "Didn't say I wouldn't."

Jason's grip on Chloe's wrist turns slack almost immediately and she twists herself free. She reaches out and grabs onto Clint's arm, squeezing so tightly he loosens his grip on the knife and lets go, dropping it to the floor. She hears Jason stumble behind her but she can't think about that right now. Clint takes a swing at her and she dodges it easily, kicking her leg out and catching him hard in the knee. She hears a satisfying pop that lets her know she's at least succeeded in dislocating his knee cap, possibly shattering it, he howls in pain. She spins him around, twisting his arm up behind his back as he collapses to the ground and has his gun pulled, cocked and aimed at his head before he even knows what hit him.

"Don't." She hears weakly from behind her and she looks out of the corner of her eye to see Jason, barely holding himself up on the edge of the counter. Blood is dripping down his leg from the wound in his stomach and his face is pale and sweaty.

Chloe takes a few deep breaths and un-cocks the gun dropping it to her side. "Don't go anywhere." Chloe says shoving Clint in the back of the head and sending him all the way to the ground. She looks and sees that his knee is already swollen; he won't be getting up this time. She turns around and Jason smiles slightly as he loses his grip. Chloe lunges forward and catches him, slowly lowering him to the ground.

"OK, so this one might be more than just a flesh wound." He coughs, his face screwed up in pain.

"Shut up." Chloe tells him angrily, grabbing a handful of gauze and packing it around the wound. "Why did you get in front of me?" She asks him. "I told you…you stupid. Why did you do that?" Chloe presses into the wound with as much pressure as she can manage. Jason grunts in pain.

"Sorry, but hearing you say you're invincible and knowing you're invincible are two different thing." He offers her. "I couldn't take the chance."

"You called for back-up right?" Chloe asks and Jason nods weakly. "Where the hell are they?" She turns to the door. "I could bring you to them but I doubt it'll be quicker, and it might do more damage. Can you walk?"

Jason shakes his head. "When I move, it hurts like a mother fucker." He coughs again, this time, little specks of blood appear at the edges of his lips, which, combined with the wheezing tells Chloe that he punctured a lung. He must have come to the same conclusion because a look of fear crosses his face briefly. "Besides, I'm pretty sure it's not going to matter either way."

"Just give me a minute ok, hang on for one minute." Chloe pleads with him. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and calms herself. Her hands stop shaking and she tries hard, searching for something, somewhere deep inside of her. She can feel it, for the first time in a long time, since she accidentally healed Castiel, she can actually feel it, a warm sort of ball of light curled up in the pit of her stomach. "Yes." She whispers. It feels different than before but she doesn't pay any attention, that doesn't matter.

Only, when she tries to grab it, it's like it's just beyond her reach. "No." She can feel the blood pouring out of Jason, feel his pulse slowing down and she knows that there's nothing she can do to stop it. "No." She grits her teeth and pushes harder. She can feel it, she can see it at this point but she can't touch it for some reason.

"It's ok." Jason croaks out. "It's ok." His fingers weakly circle her wrist, pulling her hand off his stomach. "Look, I need you to take care of Lucas for me. I know he can be a pain in the ass sometimes but he's my kid brother you know."

"Stop-" Chloe swallows, choking back a sob. "Stop saying goodbye."

"Give this to him." Jason reaches down and pulls the Nintendo 64 out of his pocket with shaky hands and passes it to Chloe. "Tell him I'm sorry."

"You're going to tell him yourself." Chloe glances over at the door wondering where in the hell her back up is.

"I'm not and we both know it." Jason shakes his head his wheezing has gotten more pronounced and it's obvious that the simple act of breathing is very painful. "Tell Jo I…I never actually said…I mean I know it's the end of the world and everything but I thought we'd have more time…"

"She knows." Chloe assures him. "Trust me, she knew before you did."

"She probably did." Jason laughs which turns into another coughing fit. "Always was smarter than me." He says slowly as his eyes flutter, then close, then there's nothing.

Ten minutes later when her back up finally makes their way into the room they find Chloe leaning up against the wall, her shirt covered in blood staring at Jason's dead body while Clint groans in agony. "Tie him up." Chloe says pulling herself to her feet. "Then load up the Jeeps, I want to get the hell out of here."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

For a second Chloe thinks the crowd gathered in the archery range is for her and she's confused because they can't know, not yet. She climbs out of the Jeep and sees Dean on one side of the crowd, Oliver on another. Dean looks over his shoulder and catches her eye for a second before simply looking away. She sighs and makes her way over to Oliver. "What's going on?" She asks him quietly, wrapping her arms around her middle at the chill in the night air.

"Sam just got back from Washington." Oliver says then turns around, surprised to see Chloe. "Hey, where have you been?" Oliver looks at his watch. "I thought you said it was only going to be a few hours.

It isn't until then that Chloe notices how dark it is outside. "What time is it?" Chloe asks him absently.

"Almost ten." Oliver looks over her shoulder as two guys drag Clint out of the back of one of the Jeeps, his arms tied behind his back, his face bloodied and bruised.

"I didn't realize it had gotten that late, sorry." Chloe shakes her head.

"Chloe what—" Oliver looks back at her and notices the blood covering her shirt for the first time.

"Where do you want him?" One of the hunters shoves Clint to the ground at Chloe's feet, forcing him to his knees, which drawls a yell from him, pulling the attention away from Sam and Chloe really didn't want this.

"Bring him to my cabin and watch him until I get there." Chloe says ignoring Oliver.

"What about—the body?" Another asks.

"Take him to Emil's for now." Chloe says. They nod and walk off, dragging Clint behind them.

"What the hell happened?" Oliver asks her as Dean realizes something's going on and makes his way over.

"Hey, you're back." Jo walks up with her ever present clip board. "Where's Jason? He owes me five bucks, I told him no way you guys would be back by dark." Chloe turns to her, her face drawn and clammy and she closes her eyes.

"I'm so sorry." Chloe looks over her shoulder and they all follow her gaze. Two guys climb down from the back of the Jeep carrying a makeshift gurney, a body lying on top of it, a white sheet draped over it.

"Chloe, where's Jason?" Jo's voice wobbles slightly. Chloe doesn't say anything, just closes her eyes and looks away. Jo drops her clip board to the ground and pushes past Chloe. "Stop." She calls to the hunters, tears already falling from her eyes as she reaches out a tentative hand and pulls back the sheet.

Bart is at her side in an instant, holding her up as her knees give out. "No." Jo sobs, collapsing into Bart's embrace.

"Someone go find Ellen please." Chloe starts to walk off.

"Where are you going?" Oliver calls after her and she stops.

"I have to go talk to Lucas." She says.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe stands in the doorway of the Armory and watches Lucas for a second. There's a shot gun completely disassembled on the table in front of him and he looks relaxed and content. He could clean and reassemble that gun in his sleep, he looks happy and Chloe hates that she's the one that has to ruin it all. "Something happened didn't it?" He asks her without looking up.

"Yeah." Chloe walks closer in the room and Lucas's hands still.

"How bad is it?" Chloe doesn't answer him and he looks up at her. "What am I saying, they sent you in here, it must be pretty bad."

"They didn't send me." Chloe walks over and sits at the table. "I volunteered." She grabs a random piece and flips it over in her hands.

"Seriously, how bad is it?" Lucas wipes his hand on the cloth slung over his shoulder. "I mean bad enough to get him off guard duty? You should check that he's not faking, he hates guard duty."

"He's not faking." Chloe coughs. "Jason's dead Lucas."

Lucas's knuckles tightened on the cloth in his hands. "Dead?"

"Lucas." Chloe reaches out her hand and he jumps back.

"Who messed up?" Lucas glares at her. "I know Jason and he doesn't mess up so if something happened to him, that means someone else messed up. Who was it?"

"Me." Chloe tells him. "I messed up." Lucas just stares at her. "I…he…" She swallows, she simply just cannot do this. "He died trying to protect me, from Clint."

"Clint?" Lucas asks confused.

"He was trying to kill me. Jason…it doesn't matter. I messed up and I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry." Chloe dips her head and rubs at the back of her neck. "Look, that obviously doesn't mean anything, I could say I'm sorry a hundred million times but it won't bring your brother back.

Lucas doesn't say anything so Chloe stands up. She pauses and digs something out of her pocket. "Jason found this," she slides the N64 across the table to Lucas, "In one of the desk drawers at the hospital. Said he broke yours a year ago in Middleton and you didn't talk to him for two weeks."

Lucas reaches out and grabs the device flipping it over in his hands. "I was one level away from beating the new Mario Brothers. I was so pissed, but it was my fault actually." Lucas looks up. "He told me to wait in the car and I didn't listen. He was hunting a Strega, it was a second floor apartment. I followed him and when the thing realized it wasn't going to get anything from the kid, it came after me. Jason threw me out of the second story window into the dumpster; I landed on it, smashed it to pieces." He set it aside. "What do I do now?"

"Whatever you want." Chloe says. "I'd understand completely if you wanted to leave, I could talk to Washington, Lord knows they need someone with some weapons expertise." Lucas stares at her and she swallows. "Or you could stay, I'd like it if you stayed. We can take care of you here."

"I'd like to stay." Lucas nods.

"Good, then that's settled." Chloe takes a deep breath.

The door swings open and they both turn around. Jo hesitantly steps in the room, closing the door behind her. "Lucas." Jo whispers and Lucas crosses the room in two steps, sliding into the open embrace of her arms as he finally brakes down and cries.

"We'll have a bonfire tomorrow night if you like?" Chloe offers, the idea of leaving Jason's dead body in Emil's lab for a whole day physically hurts her but she's honestly just too tired to deal with it tonight and he deserves a proper hunter's funeral. Lucas nods his thanks.

"I've got to go." Chloe coughs. "I need to deal with Clint."

"What's going to happen to him?" Jo wipes her eyes.

"I'm not sure." Chloe shrugs. "What do you think should happen to him?" Chloe asks Lucas.

"He should pay, for what he did." Lucas swallows. "But don't…Jason wouldn't want you to…he wouldn't want someone dead because of him. No matter what they did to deserve it." Chloe thinks about that moment when she had the gun barrel pressed into Clint's back, how easy it would have been to pull the trigger and how desperate Jason's voice had been when he'd asked her not to.

"Jo." Chloe calls out and the girl looks up at her. "He wanted me to tell you…he said he never got a chance to say…." Chloe doesn't understand why this is so hard for her to do, it's not like she's saying 'I love you', she's just saying it for Jason but she still can seem to make her mouth form the words.

"I know." Jo assures her with a soft smile.

Chloe nods and then side steps them, leaving them to their shared grief. She makes her way through the crowd gathered outside of the mess hall and into her own Cabin where Clint is being physically detained in a chair. His knee is wrapped now so Emil must have stopped by. Oliver, Dean, and Castiel and the others are there as well waiting impatiently for some sort of explanation. "Thank you." Chloe nods to the two hunters who brought him in, effectively dismissing them.

"What the hell happened out there?" Oliver is the first to speak, asking Chloe what's on everyone's mind.

"Clint killed Jason." Chloe tells them simply refusing to look at Clint for the moment, not sure she actually can look at Clint right now without giving into every urge in her body that is screaming out for revenge.

"What?" Oliver looks between Clint and Chloe confused. "Why would he do that, is he infected?"

"No." Chloe says. "He wasn't actually trying to kill Jason. He was trying to kill me, Jason just…got in the way."

"He was trying to kill you?" Castiel steps forward and Chloe puts a hand on his arm.

"Why?" Dean asks. He hasn't moved but Chloe can see his knuckles clenched tight with the effort to hold himself back.

"Because I know." Clint speaks up for the first time since Chloe detained him. "I know who she really is, I know what she's going to do."

"You don't know what I'm going to do anymore than I know what I'm going to do." Chloe snaps at him.

"Ok, you heard, about the prophecy?" Sam asks calmly.

"Everyone's heard about the prophecy, but they've all got it wrong." Clint spits out. "They think she's our savior. They think she's going to heal God. But I know the truth."

"You know the truth?" Dean scoffs. "I highly doubt that."

"She's going to kill God." Clint snaps expecting outraged gasps or surprised exclamations, instead his proclamation is met with nothing but silence. "You know." He accuses them.

"We know that is one way to interpret the prophecy." Castiel answers. "We choose not to believe it."

"You choose?" Clint asks outraged. "You choose not to believe it? Oh ok, so you choose not to believe and it that makes everything better." He says sarcastically. "How can you stand there and take that chance? How can you let her walk around free knowing what she might do?"

"Because it's what she _might_ do." Dean tells him. "I didn't realize we were in the habit of punishing people for crimes they haven't even committed yet."

"You should wait until after she kills God?" Clint scoffs. "Nice plan."

"She is not going to kill God." Castiel snaps at him and Chloe holds up a hand.

"This is useless. He's going to believe what he wants to believe. We can't change that. What we need to do is figure out what to do with him now." She says.

"What do you mean?" Oliver turns to Chloe.

"He killed a man, an innocent man and he did so with full knowledge of the act. It was murder plain and simple." Chloe says. "It can't go unpunished."

"Oh it won't." Dean assures her.

"No." Chloe snaps at him. "We're not taking justice into our own hands."

"We can't exactly arrest him." Oliver points out. "It's not like there's a jail we can put him in, there's no judges to give him a fair trial, what exactly can we do?"

"We're not killing him." Chloe says firmly.

"Please, you can't keep me alive." Clint practically spits at her. "You can't risk all your little followers out there finding out who you really are."

"Is that what you think?" Chloe asks him and he simply stares back at her defiantly. "Follow me." She says before turning around. Oliver grabs Clint and pulls him to his feet, following Chloe out the cabin, everyone else hot on her heels. She ducks her head into the Armory quickly where Jo is helping Lucas put away the weapons that Sam brought back from Washington. "You two come with me." Lucas turns around, a sword still in his hand and they follow her without question.

Practically the whole camp has congregated in the mess by now, everyone talking to everyone else, trying to figure out what exactly happened on a supply run that was supposed to be a piece of cake. Chloe pushes through the crowd and makes her way to the front of the room, stepping up onto a table.

"Excuse me, can I have everyone's attention please." Chloe calls out. Everyone stops what they're doing and looks up at her. "As you all have probably heard by now, Jason is dead. He was murdered by Clint." A low murmur goes through the crowd as Chloe simply confirms all the rumors that have been swirling around the camp.

"Why?" Someone in the middle of the crowd calls out and Chloe takes a deep breath.

"Clint was trying to kill me and Jason got in the way." She admits and the low murmur upgrades to a cacophony of people shouting questions at her, at each other. Chloe holds up her hand and they all quiet, giving her their full attention.

"He was trying to kill me because he believes that I'm going to do something horrible and he wanted to stop me. By now you've all heard the rumors of a prophecy, a prophecy that says that I will heal God." A hum of agreement. "That's not true." Everyone is staring at her now. "No one knows what the prophecy really says because the prophecy doesn't even exist anymore. There is a good chance that it did say that, that I'm supposed to heal God, but apparently there is just a good a chance that I'm supposed to kill him. That's why Clint tried to kill me." The murmur starts up again.

"Look." Chloe calls stopping the talking once again. "I don't know which one's right, maybe none of them are right. But if you're going to follow me I just think you should know the truth, have all the information available to you so you know who I am, who you're taking your orders from. What you choose to do with that information is up to you. Tomorrow morning we'll be dropping Clint off at the edge of town, any of you who want are more than welcome to go with him. For those of you who wish to stay…you've probably got work to do."

Chloe steps down off the table and makes her way to the door. No one says anything, no one moves except to make a path for her. She's careful not to look at anyone, not to say anything, she just focuses on the door. Suddenly Lucas is standing in front of her. Chloe stops, frozen in place, her eyes moving briefly to the sword he'd been polishing earlier that is now hanging loosely by his side. He follows her gaze, he hadn't realized that he'd even brought it with him. He drops the sword to the ground with a clang, steps forward and it's almost as if the entire room sucks in a collective breath.

"He knew." Lucas tells her. "He knew exactly who he was taking his orders from," he clarifies. "He's known for a while." Lucas cuts his eyes quickly to Jo who ducks her head. It's not like Chloe can mad at her for telling, she just blabbed to the whole camp. "But even after he found out he didn't care. He told me that it didn't matter, that regardless of what some ancient prophecy said. You were what mattered, keeping you safe was the mission and nothing else was more important than fighting for you, watching out for you."

"That is a very nice sentiment." Chloe tells him, her heart in her throat. "But it's completely unnecessary and it ends now." She takes a chance to look around the room now. "Alia come here." Chloe looks over at the Kandorian who steps through the crowd without a second thought to stand in front of Chloe. "Lucas, sword." Lucas hesitates, unsure. "Give me the sword." Chloe tells him more firmly. He complies this time, bending down to pick it up, then passing it to Chloe who in turn, hands if off to Alia. "Run me through."

Alia doesn't hesitate, she simply balances the sword in her grip, steps forward and slides it into Chloe's chest then up through Chloe's heart. The crowd explodes in an uproar as Chloe gasps for breath. She'd forgotten how painful getting stabbed actually was until that moment and she doubles over in pain, grabbing onto the Kandorian's shoulders in an effort to keep herself upright. She takes a few deep breaths, grits her teeth together then pulls herself upright.

"Take it out." She manages to growl out and Alia yanks the sword cleanly out. Chloe staggers slightly again but before Alia can move to steady her, Dean is already at her side, holding her up. "I'm okay." She whispers to him, shaking him off a little so she can stand on her own. Her fingers seek out the wound, putting a bit of pressure on it so that she's not standing there spilling blood all over the Mess hall floor because recently stabbed or not, she has a feeling that Ellen's going to make her clean this up.

"As you can see," Chloe pants, standing a little straighter with every word. Her face is white, her skin clammy and she thinks Alia may have punctured a lung because it's really painful to breathe. "I'm not dead. We're not sure at the moment if I even can die, so don't waste your time. I can take care of myself. It's not your job to fight for me. It's my job to fight for you. Your job is to stay alive so you can fight for everyone else. Understood?"

A chorus of _'Yes ma'am'_ spreads through the room and Chloe turns and walks away. Oliver follows her out, dragging Clint behind him. "So that's it? You're just going to drop me off in the middle of nowhere?" He calls after Chloe. She stops, her hand still on her chest. She can feel the insides of the wound healing but it's still bleeding a lot at the surface.

Chloe turns and studies him. "Would you rather I simply kill you?"

"If those are my options then, yes," Clint takes another step toward her.

"No." Chloe shakes her head. "You're not turning me into a murderer and I'm not turning you into a martyr. We'll give you enough supplies to last you a few days. If you're lucky you might make it to another camp."

"I'll tell everyone." Clint warns her. "Maybe I'll even head to Washington, I'm sure the President would love to know who exactly she got into bed with."

"She knows." Chloe says. "It was one of the first things I told her, you know in the spirit of honesty. Now she's not thrilled with the idea but she's not exactly sending hit squads after me." Chloe pauses and turns to Archer. "Unless…"

"Not that I know of." Archer shakes his head.

"So you can tell whomever you like, whatever you like, recruit a bunch of people to your cause. You can even gather them all together, come back and try and finish what you started." Chloe nodded behind him at the crowd that's followed them out of the mess and smiles. "But I kind of like our chances." Clint turns around and sees everyone glaring at him.

"I'm not sure I like his chances of making it until morning." Archer points out staring at the angry crowd.

"Take him to the chapel. We should be able to trust the priest to keep him alive for another few hours," Chloe offers. Oliver nods, grabbing him and pulling him toward the chapel.

"You should go see the Doc." Dean steps up nodding down to the ever increasing blood stain on her shirt.

"It'll close in a few minutes." She brushes him off and heads back to her cabin.

When she gets to the porch Malachi whimpers and pulls himself to his feet, hurrying to her side, nudging at her hand. "I'm fine boy." Chloe assures him sliding her un-bloodied hand into his fur and scratching the top of his head. He steps ahead of her and pushes the door open, letting her in the cabin.

She by-passes the situation room entirely and heads into the bedroom, collapsing on the bed, so exhausted she doesn't even care that the other side is empty. She closes her eyes and curls herself into a ball on her side. She's expecting to see the familiar interior of the Talon apartment, she's expecting to hear the familiar voice of Jimmy telling her that everything's going to be ok, that he's there for her but all she sees is blackness. "Come on, come on, come on." She pleads with whoever can hear her, flipping onto her back, she screws her eyes shut tightly in desperation.

"If you're not going to go see the Doc you could at least clean it up," Dean says from the doorway. She can hear him walk into the bathroom and dig around for second before closing the door behind him.

Chloe opens her eyes when the bed shifts and she stares at the ceiling while Dean lifts the edges of her shirt trying to pull it over her head. "Help me out here?" He asks and she complies, sitting up and allowing him to discard the bloody shirt. "You really know how to make a point don't you?" He reaches for the antiseptic towels and tears one of the pouches open. "Maybe next time you could do it without all the blood huh?"

Chloe studies him. She knows he's mad at her, pissed actually and yet here he is, tending to her wounds, there for her when she needs him. She thinks about the last time she talked to Jimmy, how he suggested that maybe Chloe didn't need him anymore, maybe she needed Dean. She thought about how it would feel, to let him in, to lean on him, just a bit, just enough. "How long do you think?" Chloe asks him suddenly.

"How long what?" Dean glances up at her quickly while he starts cleaning the wound.

"How long do you think he's been dead?" She stares at him and his movements still. "I mean how long was I walking around without a dad without even knowing it?"

"Chloe, you can't think like that." Dean tosses the bloody cloth in the trash can and grabs the gauze. "You know what it's like out there; you always knew that was a possibility."

"Not if he was here, where I could watch him, keep him safe." Chloe argues.

"You tried that remember." Dean walks over to the dresser and pulls out a t-shirt, carrying it over to her. "You talked to him, you begged him to let you bring him in. He wanted to stay. He was helping there, doing a lot more than he ever could here. He wouldn't leave people if he knew he could help, it's just the type of guy he was. And he wouldn't be _your_ dad if he wasn't that guy." Dean smiles softly as she pulls the shirt on then checks his watch, standing up. "Shit, I'm late. You should try to get some sleep," he kisses the top of her head and turns to the door.

"Do you have patrol tonight?" She asks frowning, pulling herself up.

"Western border. Why?" He looks at her expectantly.

"I was hoping you would stay." She sits up until she's on her knees. "Here. With me. Tonight." She clarifies.

She's never asked him to stay. He knows how hard it is for her to ask him this, to be this vulnerable, to allow herself to need him. "Yeah, ok." Dean smiles, slipping his feet out of his boots as he pulls his radio from his pocket. "Sammy."

"_Yeah?"_ Sam answers him.

"You're on patrol tonight. Western boarder." Dean tells him, pushing his pants to the ground.

"_No, actually I just checked the board. You're on patrol tonight."_ Sam comes back. Dean winks at Chloe and doesn't say anything else, waiting for Sam to take the bait. _"Come on Dean, I just got back from Washington, I'm hungry I need a bath and a few hours of sleep."_ Dean just smiles at Chloe and turns off the radio, setting it on the table by the bed before sliding in behind her.

She lays down as Dean's arms wrap around her waist he doesn't say anything and neither does she. It isn't until he places a small kiss to the tip of her shoulder that she sucks in a breath and dives right in.

"I don't have a dad." She whispers, tears in her eyes.

"Neither do I." He responds after a second.

"My mom is…I don't know if she's still alive, I doubt it." Chloe burrows further into the pillow and sobs. "I don't have anyone anymore." Her voice is nothing more than a whisper but he hears her anyway.

"What about Lois?" His fingers are rubbing soothing circles on her stomach, edging around the tape on the bandage he just applied.

"We're not the same people anymore. After everything I've done, everything I've seen, sometimes I wonder if we're even the same species." Chloe grabs his fingers, stops their ministrations and slides her own in between them.

"I get that." He assures her. "I totally get that."

Chloe rolls around and stares into Dean's eyes. She knows he's thinking about Sam, about him and Sam and how the both of them went down different paths. "You do, don't you?" She brings a hand up to his face and traces his cheekbone with her fingertips, running her thumb lightly across his jaw line.

"You have me." He promises her, almost hesitantly, as if afraid of her reaction to his statement. "I'm not going anywhere." He kisses her softly.

She just nods and settles her head onto his chest, allowing her body to curl into his. To her surprise she seems to fit perfectly. She closes her eyes and for the first time in months allows herself to just relax. It takes only minutes before she gives into sleep.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Dean, Dean, I…" Sam glares at the walkie-talkie. "He turned his radio off." Sam drops the radio on the table and collapses in the chair. "I guess I have patrol tonight."

Jo and Lois laugh from the seat across from him. Lois is doing her best to help Jo in the only way that she knows how by getting her thoroughly plastered, if the half empty tequila bottle in front of them is any indication, she's well on her way. "What?" He asks them

"Tell someone else to do it." Lois shrugs pouring another shot.

"I can't just tell someone else to do it." Sam protests.

"Of course you can. You're like, fourth or fifth in command here." Lois tells him.

"Maybe sixth." Jo shakes her head downing another shot. "Chloe then Dean, Castiel, Oliver, Bobby…"

"Seventh at least." Lois says. "That's still like seventy five people under you." Jo nods her agreement.

Sam thinks for a second. "Jo, take my patrol tonight."

Jo and Lois laugh again. "She's above you. Plus she's drunk." Lois points out. "And don't even think about telling me to do anything."

"How is she above me?" Sam asks confused.

"She's Chloe's assistant, whatever, only like Chloe and Dean can tell her what to do."

"And my mom." Jo adds.

"Right, and Ellen." Lois nods.

Sam glares at them then turns around. "Chris." A guy with curly red hair walks over. "You're on patrol tonight, western boundary."

"Yes sir." Chris nods and then walks off. Sam raises his eyebrow.

"See how easy that was." Lois raised her glass to him.

"And fun, wasn't it fun?" Jo asks. "I've recently begun to appreciate just how fun telling people what to do can be." Jo grabs for the bottle of tequila and unsteadily pours another shot.

"It was kind of fun." Sam leans back in his chair. "Kyle, Sarah, go unload the Jeeps." They both mumble their 'yes sirs' and then walk off. "I could get used to this."

"Samuel Winchester!" He practically falls backward out of his chair and jumps to his feet, turning to see a very annoyed Martha Kent. "Well it looks like you've got nothing better to do then sit with your feet up on my tables." She rests her hands on her hips. "Don't think I haven't forgotten that you've slipped out of KP duty every time it came up this past month."

"I…" Sam tries to defend himself but it's no use.

"I have a kitchen full of dirty pots and no patience." She steps aside and Sam turns to Lois and Jo who shrug apologetically. His shoulders slump and he walks into the back room, Martha following him.

"We forgot about Mrs. Kent." Jo points out before tossing back another shot.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean stares down at Chloe, sprawled across his chest, her hair tickling the underside of his neck. The fingers of her right hand are still loosely tangled with Dean's, trapped in between their bodies. Her left leg is slung over his hip, her foot tucked under his and she is dead asleep, has been for the past three hours.

Dean isn't sure what to do at this point. It's not a situation that he's come across before because, simply put, Chloe doesn't normally sleep. Every now and then, not to brag, Dean can manage to exhaust her to the point where she gets a few hours of shut eye but more often than not she normally just waits until Dean falls asleep and then sneaks out of bed.

At first it woke him up every time but eventually he got used to it. He even took some comfort in the fact that she made a point to wait until he was asleep, but he was never surprised to wake up in the bed alone. Now it looks like he might actually get the chance to fall asleep and wake up with Chloe lying in his arms and he's the one sneaking out of bed. He places a small kiss on her forehead, reluctantly untangles himself from her and slides out of the bed. "Come here." Dean pats the edge of the mattress and Malachi jumps up smoothly, crawling over to Chloe and curling up beside her. "Watch her for me ok?" Dean pets his head softly.

He gets dressed quickly and quietly, slipping from the cabin with very little noise. The camp ground is dark but Dean knows where he's going. It isn't until he's well into the woods that he hears the twig snap behind him. He spins around quickly, his gun raised but relaxes when all he sees is Oliver with his hands in the air. "Hey." Dean lowers his gun.

"Hey." Oliver lowers his arms and looks over Dean's shoulders and smiles. "Guess we both had the same idea huh."

"Guess so." Dean turns around and stares at the chapel.

They both move take another step when the chapel door opens. Father Mac steps out in front of them, a disappointed look on his face. "I was hoping it wouldn't come to this."

"Father Mac." Dean stares at him hard for a second. "I suppose there's no way we could convince you to go for a little walk? Just for five minutes or so, once around the lake?"

"Maybe twice." Oliver jumps in. "Just to be on the safe side."

"I'd have to say no." Father Mac shakes his head sadly. "And you know that."

"What I know is that he killed Jason." Dean points out, just in case Father Mac hadn't been told the whole story. "He tried to kill Chloe."

"And from what I understand, Chloe has already assigned him a punishment befitting the crimes he's committed." Father Mac points out to them.

"Befitting the crime?" Oliver scoffs. "She's kicking him out of camp, he's getting off scot free."

"Hardly." Father Mac shakes his head. "Have the two of you forgotten already what an inhospitable world it is out there? Should he actually manage to survive on his own, she's turning him away from his home, from the only place where he has shelter and safety."

It's Dean's turn to scoff this time, not buying it. "It's not enough."

"It was enough for Cain." A new voice says and Dean and Oliver spin around to see Castiel standing behind them. "God cast Cain out, banished him for killing Abel, '_a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth'._" Castiel reminds them. "I suggest you head back to your cabins now." Castiel says walking around them to stand beside Father Mac.

Dean and Oliver stare at the angel before realizing that it's futile. "Fine." Dean says angrily, turning on his heal and storming off. Oliver stays for a few seconds longer, seeing something in Castiel's eyes that Dean may have missed. He offers the angel a small nod then follows Dean back in the direction of the camp.

When they are gone from sight the priest lets out a breath and his shoulders sag in relief. "Thank you." He turns to Castiel. "I'm afraid all people normally remember from the bible is "an eye for an eye", they seem to forget that it is not our place as mere humans to seek vengeance." Father Mac shakes his head sadly.

"Then it's a good thing I am not human." Castiel turns and reaches for the door of the chapel.

Father Mac stares at him in surprise. "I don't understand, you just told them…" He looks back at where Dean and Oliver had been standing.

"I told them what I needed to tell them to get them to go." Castiel explains. "Chloe would never forgive herself if they became murderers in her name."

"I thought you of all people…" Father Mac argues.

"But that is just it." Castiel reminds him. "I am not 'people'. Why do you think God created us? We were made as his instruments, to do his dirty work, I had no choice. Do you have any idea how many civilizations I've crushed in his name? How many lives I have taken? What is one more?"

"This is not done in God's name. If you do this now, it will be your choice, and yours alone."

"This is what I choose." Castiel says. "And I choose it not for him, but for her."

"And how will she feel when she finds out what you have become in her name?" Father Mac asks him and Castiel has no answer. "You know what? I think I will take that walk around the lake, give you some time to think." Father Mac steps away from the door to the chapel. He doesn't make it five steps before turning around and staring intently at the angel. "There is more to that bible verse of yours." Father Mac reminds him. "_And the Lord said unto him, therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold._"

Castiel's jaw clenches. "I will be sure to remind God of that, the next time I see him." He says cheekily and Father Mac can do nothing but shake his head and walk away.

**November 6, 2011**

Chloe and Dean sit across from each other at breakfast the next morning, a tentative peace brewing though they hadn't actually gotten the chance to talk about anything. Chloe knows that their differences will likely come to a head, sooner more likely than later and she can't say she's prepared for that fallout but for now it's like they've both silently agreed to put all that aside and for that Chloe is grateful.

Something happened last night, something changed between her and Dean and though she's not quite sure what the full ramifications of that change will be, for the moment she has no regrets. Especially when Dean smiles at her like he's doing at the moment. "Look, I think Bart's hitting on Cynthia." Dean nods over Chloe's shoulder and she turns her head quickly, but Bart's nowhere in the Mess. When she turns back to Dean she sees his cheeks puffed up like a hamster storing food and a guilty grin on his face. Chloe narrows her eyes and looks down at her plate which is now missing one warm buttered slice of bread.

"No." Chloe shakes her head in horror. "No, Martha baked that fresh this morning."

Dean swallows with a bit of difficulty and takes a long sip of his coffee. "You snooze you lose."

"You know the rules." Chloe argues. "One slice per person, no exceptions. She doesn't believe me when I tell her you steal mine."

"That's because you're like the boy who cried wolf." Dean points out.

"Fine, you go and you tell her that I stole yours, she'll give you and extra slice, for some reason I can't seem to understand she likes you." Chloe tells him.

"The same reason why you like me I suppose." Dean flashes her those billion dollar dimples and Chloe raises his eyebrows.

"I pray to God that she doesn't like you for the same reason that I do." Chloe jokes and Dean's smile drops from his face.

"And now I'm not hungry anymore." He grumbles pushing his plate away.

"And that's how I always get your bacon." Chloe says in triumph snatching the bacon off of Dean's plate and breaking it in half. She happily chews on one piece and drops the other piece to her lap where Malachi devours it in one bite.

She's smiling and she can't seem to stop, even when Father Mac stops beside her table. "Good morning," Chloe says to the priest, much to Dean's surprise. "Would you like to join us? Dean can go get you some coffee."

Father Mac shakes his head, the ghost of a smile on his face. "No, thank you. I have some bad news I'm afraid."

"Oh?" Chloe asks him confused.

"It appears that, at some point in the night, Clint managed to escape." Father Mac tells her.

The previous day's events come crashing back down on Chloe and she sucks in a breath when she remembers Jason and Clint. She can see Jo in the corner nursing a hangover, a sad smile on her face as she tries to get Lucas to eat something. Then the full meaning of the priest's words hit her and she turns to him, a frown on her face. "He escaped?"

"Yes, when I woke up he was gone. Oliver's had crews scouring the camp ground since first light but he's nowhere to be found."

"Right." Chloe nods slowly. "He managed to get pretty far on that bum knee of his then?" Father Mac freezes, obviously forgetting about the fact that the day before Chloe had messed up his knee cap. "It seems slightly strange that he would bother to run away when he could have just waited until morning and I would have given him a ride."

"Yes, well." Father Mac coughs and looks away from Chloe, unable to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry I let him slip through my fingers."

"It's not your fault." Chloe says slowly. "I mean even if you'd heard him sneaking out, I'm sure a man of your advanced age would have had quite a hard time keeping up with someone with two good legs, let alone one." Father Mac opens his mouth again and Chloe offers him a terse shake of her head letting him know that the jig is up and she'd rather not hear any more of his excuses.

Chloe pauses for a second before turning to Dean. "You left last night." She tells him slowly. "You got out of bed and then you came back about an hour later."

"I didn't." Dean tells her. "I swear to you Chloe, I didn't. I mean I did leave last night and I went to the chapel but Father Mac wouldn't let me in and then Cass-" Dean cut off and turned his head, seeking out the angel. "Cass told me to go back to bed." He says slowly, putting the pieces together on his own.

Chloe follows his gaze where Castiel is pouring over maps, talking to Bobby. "You don't think he'd do anything?" Chloe whispers. At that moment Castiel lifts his head and up and catches Chloe's eye and she can see it, staring her in the face, guilt. She turns back to Father Mac who looks slightly guilty himself.

"People must have the freedom to make their own choices, or they don't count for anything." Father Mac answers her unasked question. "And then they have to live with the consequences."

Chloe nods at him in understanding. "Speaking of choices, I finished the little project you gave me." He digs something out of his pocket and drops a single 9mm bullet to the table next to Chloe's tray. She looks from the priest to the bullet and then back again with a raised eyebrow. "A bullet is just a bullet. It's neither good nor evil until someone chooses to use it." He tells her and she smiles, pleased.

"Talk to Lucas, he'll tell you what you can do next." Chloe turns away but picks the bullet up and rolls it around in her hand.

Dean stares at the retreating form of the priest before turning to Chloe. "What just happened here?"

"You know that impossible test I gave him?" Chloe asks and Dean nods. "He just passed."

"You seem strangely pleased by this." Dean studies her.

Chloe shrugs. She feels the cold lead in her hands and slips it into her pocket. She actually is strangely pleased and she tells Dean this. What she doesn't tell him though is that in passing Chloe's test, Father Mac offered up one of his own.

_It's neither good nor evil until someone chooses to use it. _

Unfortunately Chloe's positive that this is a test that she will fail.

_Another hero, another mindless crime_

_Behind the curtain, in the pantomime_

_Hold the line!_

_Does anybody want to take it anymore?_

_-Queen_


	14. Waiting for the Rapture

Waiting For the Rapture

_She come up to me_

_I can't remember what she said_

_Cause I was in a trance and I forgot it all._

_Banging on about all that _

_Revolution in her head_

_She'd make a lover seem so magical_

**December 24, 2011**

Jo hurries into the Situation Room and immediately freezes when she sees President Meyers face on Oracle's screens. "I understand Madam President, but I've sent as many people as I feel comfortable sending." Chloe is sitting in front of the monitors and she looks exhausted. Castiel is standing stoically behind her, his sole job to look menacing.

"I'm not writing New York off as a lost cause," President Meyers argues.

"I'm not saying that. Look, it's the largest Croat stronghold we've found so far. There's got to be a reason why they chose that place and I don't feel comfortable going forward without knowing that reason." Chloe pinches the bridge of her nose. "I'm suggesting we retreat, for the time being, regroup and formulate a plan when we have better, more complete intelligence."

"And how do you propose we get that intelligence?" The President asks.

"The same way we got intelligence before all this happened," Chloe offers but the President doesn't seem to understand. "You can't tell me we lost all the spooks when Croatoan hit. Come on, someone found us for you, you guys sure as hell didn't do that on your own. Who was it, CIA, FBI, NSA?"

"You want me to send _my_ people into a Croat stronghold?" The President balks.

"You have no problem letting me send _my_ people in there," Chloe counters. "It's a simple fact finding mission, it's what these guys do best. How this is any different than sending them into Afghanistan, Iran, or Russia?"

"We haven't had spies in Russia since the end of the cold war," The President responds automatically.

Chloe pauses in surprise. "Seriously," she chuckles, "you're actually bothering to feed me the company line? Now? After everything?"

The President is quiet for a second, then even she lets out a laugh. "Admiral Richardson has a few contacts he may be able to rely on."

Jo takes this opportunity to crouch down next to Chloe and whisper in her ear, "They're at the front gate getting checked."

"Madam President, I'm sorry there's something I need to take care of. You can coordinate with Archer to iron out the details," Chloe says a bit excitedly.

"Of course." The President nods. "Oh and Chloe, Merry Christmas."

Chloe pauses and looks at the President confused. "I'm sorry, what?"

President Meyers laughs again. "It's Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas."

"Yes, of course," Chloe mumbles. "To you too." She closes the video connection and turns to Dean. "I guess that would explain the tree in the Mess. Did you know it was Christmas?" She can't remember the last time she actually celebrated Christmas.

"They're leaving the gate," Jo interrupts her thoughts.

"Right." Chloe grabs her coat and heads for the door. "Do Lois and Lucy know?"

"That it's Christmas?" Jo asks confused. "I would think so, Lois is the one who made Clark chop down the Christmas tree."

Chloe chuckles, that sounds exactly like Lois. "No, about-"

"Is it true?" Lucy tumbles into the Situation Room, Lois hot on her heels. "Is he here?"

"Why didn't you tell us?" Lois pants out, it's obvious that they ran to Chloe's cabin from where ever they'd been when they heard the news.

"I wanted it to be a surprise." Chloe sighs, she makes a motion for them to head outside and they do, Chloe following closely behind them, Dean, Malachi, and Castiel behind her.

"You wanted what to be a surprise? What's going on?" Dean asks walking up to Chloe's shoulder.

"The General called a few weeks ago, said he and his men were docking in New York, said he was on his way to Camp that he had something very important to talk to me about and that he didn't feel like he could explain over the phone," Chloe says, making her way to the Archery Range.

"How did you manage to keep this from Lois and Lucy?" Dean smiles at her at as two Hummers and an honest to God tank make their way down the entry road and into the camp quad. Lois and Lucy are clutching at each other, hoping from foot to foot in eager anticipation.

"It wasn't easy." Chloe shrugs. "But I rarely get to deliver good news, and on Christmas no less." She smiles, her cousins excitement obviously contagious. The vehicles stop and uniformed soldiers pile out and fall into line in front of Chloe, standing at attention. Lois and Lucy are less energetic now as they search the faces of the men and do not see their dad. Chloe groans when she sees the reason why. Captain Grant, the General's second-in-command, climbs out of the Hummer holding a neatly folded American flag. "Shit, it looks they'll be no good news today."

"You don't think?" Dean stands up straighter as Captain Grant heads for Lois and Lucy who have obviously caught onto what's happening.

"I really do." Chloe shakes her head and walks over to her cousins.

She grabs Lois' arm just as Grant offers her the flag with a frown on his face and a solemn, "I've very sorry for your loss." Lois reaches out stiffly and grabs the flag, clutching it in her fingers in a white knuckled grip, nodding absently at Grant. Lucy is a little slow on the uptake though, not fully understanding what's going on.

"Lois, where's Dad?" Lucy whispers looking from her sister's face to the flag and back again. "Where's Dad?" Lucy's voice starts to wobble and tears well up in her eyes.

"Luce…" Lois swallows, clenching the flag to her chest.

"No." Lucy drops her sister's arm and backs away. "No." She looks desperately to Chloe. "Where's my Dad?"

"Lucy." Chloe steps toward her but she turns and runs away. Chloe makes a move to go after her but Lois stops her with a hand on Chloe's forearm.

"I've got her." Lois walks off after her sister.

"Clark is in South America somewhere, find him, tell him what's going on, and get him back here now." Chloe tells Jo who nods and walks back to the Situation Room. "Captain Grant." Chloe steps forward.

"Ma'am," he says, standing at attention and offering her a salute.

"You don't have to do that," Chloe admonishes him.

"You're my boss, I kind of do." He smirks at her but it's tired, dejected.

"At ease then," Chloe orders him and the rest of the soldiers.

"I have a few other things for them." Captain Grant reaches in his pocket and pulls something out. Chloe recognizes Lois' Mom's engagement ring and their wedding bands dangling from the General's dog tags. "Things the General wanted them to have."

"I can pass them on," Chloe assures him, as he hands them over. She clenches them in her hand for a second before dropping them in her pocket.

"I've got a present for you too." Grant smiles and turns back to the Hummer. He whistles and nods at one of the soldiers who opens the vehicle's back door. "Joshua, get over here."

"You're a day earlier, Christmas isn't until tomorrow," Chloe says, going for levity.

She's not sure exactly what's going on when a young man, Joshua apparently, steps cautiously out of the Hummer and looks around at his surroundings. "Well?" Grant looks to her for something, some sort of recognition.

"He's not exactly my type but…thank you?" Chloe frowns at Grant. "For thinking of me."

"Joshua, this is Chloe, Chloe, Joshua," Grant introduces them, staring between them expectantly.

"Hi." Joshua waves at her sheepishly, still slightly unsure where he is and why he's there.

"Hi." Chloe waves back then turns to Grant who has apparently done his job and is not offering her anything else to go on. She turns away from the young man, not really sure what to do with him at the moment and looks at the rest of the General's men. "When was the last time you guys had a home cooked meal?" She asks the soldiers.

"Five years, seven months, two days," one of them answers, only partly joking.

"Dean, can you show these guys to the Mess Hall, Ellen and Martha should have dinner ready by now."

"Yeah, sure." Dean motions for the soldiers to follow him, one of them grabs Joshua's sleeve and pulls him along. Chloe takes Captain Grant's arm and steers him toward the Mess.

Most of her communication with the General happened through Grant, they'd gotten to know each other really well over the past six or seven months. "What the hell happened Owen?" Chloe asks him when they reach the steps. "The General wouldn't tell me anything. What are you guys even doing here? Who's the civie?"

"So you have no idea who he is?" Grant groans in frustration. "Great, we trekked all over Europe trying to find him, risked everything, the General gave his life to get him to you and you have no idea who he is?" He turns around and kicks the railing on the steps in frustration, knocking it completely off and to the ground. Malachi plants himself in between Grant and Chloe, a low growl building deep in his throat.

"It's OK boy. He's just upset." Chloe grabs Malachi and pulls him back. "Grant." Chloe reaches out and grabs his arm, stopping him as he moves forward, this time to punch the wooden post supporting the porch and likely break his hand in the process. "Calm down."

He takes a few deep breaths, rests his head against the wooden post until he calms down enough to take a step back. He looks sheepishly at the pieces of wood that used to be a railing and then over at Chloe. Malachi bares his fangs one last time for good measure and Grant steps back slightly. "Sorry about that," he offers.

"It's cool." Chloe gives him a small smile. "I never liked it that much." Grant lets out a sheepish laugh. "Plus, watch this." Chloe smirks and leans over the porch. "Hey, you," she calls out, stopping a passing guy, a red head. "Chris, right?"

"Yes ma'am," he stutters, freezing in place.

"Fix this." Chloe motions to the pieces of wood.

"Yes ma'am." He nods then scurries away. Chloe presumes to go get some tools of some sort.

Grant just shakes his head at her. "Perks of the job." Chloe shrugs, unapologetic and walks him inside. They both fix a plate, meatloaf with all the trimmings, then take a table off in the back of the room, out of the way.

"Where'd you get actual meat?" Grant asks, hesitantly poking at his slice of meatloaf.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Chloe says with a smiling thinking about when she asked Ellen the exact same question. They'd basically hunted out the wood's around them by now and no one was stupid enough to touch anything left in store freezers or restaurants. Jo had then nervously relayed the story of how she'd gone off a hunch and sent a group of Kandorian's to Africa, thinking that there would be plenty of game left and she'd been right. They were very careful to only take a little and they always shared with the other few refugee camps around the country. "It's not exactly beef but it's good, trust me."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Sam and Oliver have been trying to bring Joshua up to speed but the whole thing seems slightly surreal to him. This place is nothing like the refugee camp in Wales, nothing like the countless military camps they'd stopped at along the way. Every place he'd been to since leaving Cardiff had been the same, people milling about aimlessly, most of them in some state of perpetual shock, no one knowing what to do, all of them just waiting for it to be over one way or another.

But here it was different, there was movement, constant movement. People were doing things, everyone was busy, all the time. When he'd mentioned feeling useless back in Cardiff they'd assured him that wouldn't be a problem here. Everyone had a job to do, sometimes two or three jobs to do and if you didn't have one, they'd find one for you. He wasn't exactly sure how that was even possible what with the sheer amount of people there were. It was the most people Joshua had seen gathered together in one place since the virus hit, and the soldiers, he couldn't believe how many soldiers there were.

He'd not seen a single member of Her Majesties Army the entire time he'd been in England, he wasn't even sure there was such a thing as Her Majesties Army anymore, but here he couldn't go two feet without hitting someone in camo gear. When he mentions this to Oliver, he smiles.

"We had a bit of head start here, seeing it happen to you guys first. We were slightly better prepared, had a lower casualty rate. As for why they're _here_, we're sort of the unofficial base camp for all military organizations."

"Here?" Joshua looks around. "Why not Washington? Did something happen to Washington? We didn't really get any news in England but I'd assumed the President—oh God did something happen to the President?" His eyes get wide, he hadn't thought, didn't really have time to think about the political ramifications of everything. For all he knew there was no more President and if there was no President there likely wasn't a Prime Minister, he hated to think what had become of the Queen.

"The President didn't make it," Sam explains, "but we have a new President now and she's pretty good actually."

"Right." Joshua nods glossing over the she. Of course they had a new President, they had contingencies set up for this sort of thing in America.

"From what Chloe can figure out your Prime Minister didn't make it but the Queen's doing fine, she was evacuated to Balmoral at the first sign of trouble and they haven't had much problems with Croats that far North," Sam offers as if he can somehow read Joshua's mind and he lets out a breath he didn't realize he was even holding. Apparently it takes the end of the world to really come to appreciate one's Monarch.

"And what about her?" Joshua looks over his shoulder to the short blonde that Grant had introduced him too earlier. "Who is she exactly?"

Oliver and Sam exchange glances. "She's the boss here at camp," Sam says finally after weighing his words very carefully.

"She's the boss everywhere." Oliver snorts. "She's in charge of all of us and the military too."

"Her?" Joshua can't keep the disbelief out of his voice as he looks over at her again. "She's so…young."

"Well she didn't exactly ask for the job." Sam shook his head. "She just sort of fell into the role."

"None of us asked for this," Joshua points out studying Chloe more intently. She reminds him of Gwen, taking on the responsibility of helping a bunch of people that she doesn't even know, simply because it has to be done. She looks young, that's true, but at the same time she looks extremely old, older than her years by far and tired, she looks so tired that Joshua wants to go have a nap on her behalf, but none of that changes that she's the reason he's there in the first place. "Why was General Lane so keen to get me to her?"

"I don't know why the General thought it was so important to have you here but if anyone can figure it out, it'll be Chloe. I know whatever it is, it was important so that means that you're important."

"But I'm nobody," Joshua protests vehemently.

"Not to the General and not to Chloe," Sam argues with him.

"Look, I know she looks young but she's good," Oliver says and Joshua turns to him to find him staring at Chloe just as intently as he had been. "She keeps us all feed and safe when she can help it." He smiles slightly. "She can be a bit abrasive but don't let that scare you off. She'd give her life for anyone at this camp, including you, has given her life for some of us more than once," Oliver says cryptically. "She knows what needs to be done and she does it, even when she doesn't like it, so you don't have to worry OK?"

"I'm not worried," Joshua tells him honestly and for the first time in a long time he isn't worried, he feels safe here and he has no idea why. He looks back over at Chloe who is deep in conversation with Grant and frowns. There's something about her, about just being in the same vicinity as her that puts him instantly at ease. Maybe she just has that effect on people, maybe she just has that kind of effect on him. The longer he looks at her though, he can't shake the feeling that he's met her before.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"The General didn't make it out of New York." Grant tells Chloe flat out, after dancing around the subject for long enough. "They were waiting for us at the docks, like they knew we were going to be there. He sacrificed himself so that we could get Joshua here to you." Malachi, obviously having changed his opinion on Grant, lifts his head slightly and lays it across the man's knee, hoping to offer him some sort of comfort and Grant smiles, running his fingers through the dogs fur.

Chloe pushes the peas around on her plate and looks over to where Joshua is talking with Sam and Oliver then back to Grant. "So is there something special about him?"

Grant looks over at Joshua and shrugs. "He held his own at the docks, but then he had a kind of minor breakdown." Grant turns back to Chloe. "Not than I can blame him. He's just a civilian, it's not like he was trained for this. Hell, it's not like any of us were trained for this." Grant looks over her shoulder at Dean, who's laughing with a few of his men. "Well, except maybe the two of you."

"Us? Are you kidding?" Chloe pushes her plate away and offers him a rare smile. "He used to sell insurance, and I'm a classically trained ballet dancer." Grant seems taken aback for a second before Chloe laughs letting him off the hook, then turning her attention back on Joshua. "Why him? Why was it so important that he come here then?"

"The General wouldn't say. One night he told me that he didn't really understand it himself," Grant explains. "He said he had a dream, about a week after Croatoan hit Europe, he saw a face, his face." Grant nods over at Joshua. "He made these sketches. We had to check every guy at every camp we came across. The General was convinced that we'd find him, in everything that was going on it had to be a one in a million chance. We wanted to give up but the General wouldn't let us. Said he didn't know why, probably never would, but he knew this Joshua kid was important. We ended up in Cardiff, heard there was a camp there, that they had a boat that was going to America. We get there and there's no boat, but we find the kid. One in a million." Grant shakes his head. "He just kept saying everything would be alright if we got Joshua to America, to you." Grant shrugs and stands up.

"He had a dream?" Chloe asks perking up slightly at this.

"Yeah, does that mean anything to you?" Grant asks.

"Not to me." Chloe shakes her head.

"Joshua," Grant calls across the room. Joshua scrambles to his feet and hurries over, sliding his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. "I made a promise that I wouldn't let him out of my sight until we got him to you. So I now officially pass him over into your care."

Joshua looks between Grant and Chloe. "You're passing me off?" Joshua asks. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Where ever our fearless leader sends us next." Grant claps Joshua on the back. "Don't worry, we're leaving you in good hands. She's the reason you're here anyway, the woman with all the answers."

Joshua looks at Chloe expectantly. "Right, answers. We'll get to that, I promise." She turns back to Grant. "You should talk to Jo. She'll set you and your men up with some rooms. You guys should take a few days, rest up before you go back out there."

"Thanks." Grant nods at her. "Feel free to put my guys to work as long as we're here, don't want them to get lazy."

"I'm sure that won't be a problem." Chloe turns to Joshua and looks him up and down, quietly appraising him. "You, come with me," Chloe says and he scrambles to follow her out of the Mess Hall.

A woman appears at Chloe's side the instant they step out of the building almost as if by magic, matching her step to Chloe's without hesitation, like they do this all the time. Joshua hurries to keep up, not that they'd even notice if he wasn't there but is sure to keep his distance, cautiously eyeing the large white dog that seems to follow Chloe everywhere. "Oliver's report from Memphis mentioned a refugee camp, it's pretty stable, Croat activity minimal but he says they're not doing too good on the supplies front and I was thinking…"

"Get in touch with Eva, she swore to me that they would have the Red Cross up and running by now, give her the information and they can take care of it," Chloe says. Jo opens her mouth to protest and Chloe cuts her off, but not unkindly, "Jo, it's not our job, we've got way more important things to think about and that's what the Red Cross is there for."

"Yes ma'am." Jo scribbles something on the pad. "Lt. Colonel Archer said something earlier about pulling everyone out of New York and I heard you on the phone with the President, but I need you to officially give me the order."

"Everyone," Chloe nods giving the order, "and that means Knowles and his men."

"He's not going to be happy about that." Jo bites her lip.

"He's not happy about much." Chloe snorts. "Speaking of Archer, I want him working point on the New York thing. The spooks are going to want to keep us out of the loop, it's in their nature. I need him to make sure that doesn't happen."

Jo lets out dramatized sigh. "He's going to name it you know," she tells Chloe with a funny smile. "He's going to give it some lame name like Operation Big Apple or something."

"He can't help it," Chloe defends the man. "Anything else?"

"Vegas," Jo says in a long suffering tone and Chloe stops in her tracks. Joshua isn't ready for that and almost barrels right into her. "It's a cluster fuck."

"It's always been a cluster fuck." Chloe sighs in annoyance.

"The hunters won't take orders from the military, the military refuses to listen to the hunters and nothing's getting done. It's almost got a casualty rate higher than New York. You need to go down there and put the fear of G—" Jo's mouth closes comically cutting off what she was about to say. "Put some fear into them."

"When? When should I go down there, please tell me in all my massive amounts of free time, when I can go sort out Las Vegas?" Chloe asks rubbing her temples. "Send Knowles." Chloe brightens a bit. "If anyone can straighten that place out he can, and he'll be happy, it's the biggest hot zone in the South West. It'll give him a chance to make up for Arizona and tell him I'll be out there as soon as I can find a free minute."

"Anything else?" Jo asks.

"I'm taking Joshua to Emil but let everyone know I want them in my cabin in three hours OK?" She doesn't elaborate on who everyone is so Jo must know, Joshua assumes she doesn't literally mean everyone. "And find Captain Grant, set him and his men up with a few cabins, assign them some chores and talk to him, see if he has any preferences for his next assignment." Chloe pauses. "You know what wait; send them to Vegas with Knowles." Jo nods and heads in the opposite direction and Chloe resumes walking to where ever it is she's taking Joshua.

"So you're in charge here? Everyone just does what you say?" Joshua struggles to keep pace with her.

"Pretty much." Chloe spares him a glance over her shoulder.

"Like whatever you say?" He catches up to her and looks at her sideways.

"Yes." Chloe nods.

"So if you say jump they ask how high?"

"No." Chloe stops and turns to him. "If I say jump. They jump."

"And if you order them into a hot zone they go?" Joshua asks.

"Yes." Chloe grits her teeth.

"Do I have to do what you say?" Joshua asks as they reach Emil's lab. Chloe stops and turns to him.

"Joshua, do you want to live?" Chloe puts her hand on the door and he nods. "Then if I say jump, you jump. If I say run, you run. If I say stay, you stay. If I say fight, you fight, you understand?" He nods and she walks into the building. He stands there for a second to get his breathing under control and she opens the door and peers out at him. "Joshua, inside, now."

"Yes ma'am." He scrambles to follow her through the door, Malachi on his heels but Chloe holds out a hand and the dog pauses, his ear's droop down and he sits on the porch.

"Don't give me that look, you know how Emil feels about having you in here," Chloe says shutting the door on the dog before turning around. "Doc!" Chloe calls out, walking through the main room. She veers around the cots on the right side which are thankfully, strangely empty and heads to the doors in the back, doors that are being guarded by two very scary looking guys. She stops in her tracks and spins to face Joshua. "Stay here. Don't move." She stares at him for a minute then spins back around and has a silent conversation with the two men before heading through the doors.

Joshua takes the opportunity to look around the room. Since the soldiers took him out of Cardiff he's visited his fair share of sick bays. All of them had been hastily thrown together, minimally stocked and woefully understaffed. This place on the other hand looks more like a high tech medical lab, the types of places where they cure cancer. There are two stainless steel tables, Joshua counts five machines he's only vaguely heard of in passing in school and considering only about three hospitals in the country could actually afford them, he never imagined he'd see any in person.

He walks over to a centrifuge that has been left open on the counter, a machine he's actually had some experience dealing with. He idly spins the center disc , stopping it when he realizes one of the guards is glaring at him. He grins sheepishly then looks around only to stop and walk to the back of the room, all the while staring at the 12-foot tall machine in front of him in wonder. He reaches out his hand slowly but jerks it back when he hears a harsh, "Don't touch that." Joshua spins around, slightly guilty and sees Chloe elbow an older man in the ribs.

"Emil," Chloe says through clenched teeth.

"Please," Emil adds with a tired smile.

"You have your own electron microscope?" Joshua turns back to the machine. "Why do you have your own electron microscope?"

"We use it as a coat rack." Chloe grabs his elbow gently and pulls him away from the microscope back to the exam area.

"Where did you get that? I thought the Berkley lab was the only place with one that big. It was special made for them by the Department of Energy," Joshua says dumbly. Chloe and Emil stop and share a look. Joshua's eyes go wide and he turns back to the microscope. "That's…"

"We needed one and they weren't using it," Chloe cuts him off and motions for him to step up onto the exam table. "Emil is going to give you a quick once over, take some blood, check your vitals."

"Why?" Joshua asks as Emil walks over and pulls up his sleeve.

"Because I told him to," Chloe says simply, dropping down into the nearest chair.

"Right." Joshua nods, turning away quickly as Emil readies the syringe.

Two hours later Joshua is downing a glass of water, trying to catch his breath. "You stink," Chloe says spinning the chair.

"I just ran two miles." Joshua pants. "Was the stress test really necessary?"

"Probably not." Chloe smiles and stands up. She walks over to the counter and runs her fingers along the edge, one hand reaching out for a pile of microscope slides.

"Don't touch that," Emil says without turning around and Chloe snatches her hand back quickly. Joshua allows himself a small smile, it's nice to know he's not the only one who gets chastised.

"Chloe, come take a look at this," Emil calls from in front of the stolen electron microscope. He steps back and pulls off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He needs Chloe to double check his findings to make sure he isn't seeing things.

Chloe walks over and checks the image for herself. "Are those antibodies?" She looks back up at Emil who nods.

"Antibodies?" Joshua frowns.

Chloe turns to him with a strange look on her face. "For Croatoan."

"But the only way that I could possibly have—" Joshua swallows hard. "I'm infected?" he asks, his voice desperate.

"No, you _were_ infected," Chloe corrects him. "And then you were _cured_."

Joshua wracks his brain, he can't remember any time where he could have gotten infected, even when dealing with possibly infected wounded he was always very careful. He certainly doesn't remember receiving anything remotely like a cure. The last time he checked there was no cure so how in the hell does he have antibodies floating around in his blood stream?

"I've only seen this once before." Emil points out to Chloe. "In your blood."

Joshua turns to the blond woman and she doesn't seem the least bit surprised by that pronouncement. "How viable are they?" Chloe asks interested. "Mine never lasted long enough to be useful."

"Useful?" Joshua asks not following.

"For finding an vaccine," Chloe tells him.

"You can do that?" Joshua rolls down his sleeves, a hopeful expression on his face.

"I won't know until I do more research." Emil puts his glasses back on. "I'll probably need a few things."

"You always need a few things." Chloe smiles fondly at the doctor. "Get me a list and I'll send someone out." Her hand reaches for the thin chain hidden under the collar of her shirt. She pulls at it until a small crystal pendant falls out. Grabbing it, she absently begins to move the pendant back and forth on the chain, a practiced habitual motion that she probably doesn't even know she's doing. Joshua can't seem to take his eyes off the pendant though.

"It _was_ you." He says slowly, jumping off of the examination table and walking toward Chloe.

Before either of them even realize what's happening, he reaches out his hand and grabs the pendant, pulling it from Chloe's fingers. "You looked kind of familiar but," Joshua looks up at Chloe, "your hair is much longer," he says. "I didn't recognize you at first." Chloe raises her eyebrows at him then looks down where he is still holding onto her pendant. Joshua drops it quickly and takes a step back out of her personal space. "That was my mother's," Joshua says to her. "I gave it to you, remember?"

Chloe looks down at the pendant, it's been hanging from her neck for so long she actually had forgotten where it came from. "We've met before?" Chloe asks him.

"Just the once, the day you created me." Joshua smiles.

_**July 5, 2008**___

Chloe turns the corner, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder. Surprisingly she feels better, not good yet. Good probably won't come for a while but talking about it to someone, a stranger, actually did help. Steven Temple, she commits his name to memory, maybe she'll do a bit of research, have Emil look at his wife's file, see if there's anything they can do. She knows it's not really their area but the woman has a one month old and Chloe's pretty sure at this point Oliver wouldn't refuse her anything. He'd probably be excited by the fact that she's actually talking again.

Her steps become more determined as she makes her way back to the Watchtower. Her fingers are itching for a keyboard and she stops in the middle of the street when she realizes just how long it's been since she touched a computer. When she gets to the Watchtower she takes the steps two at a time, lamenting the fact that Oliver hasn't had a chance to replace the dilapidated elevator. She knows that she's the reason for this, knows that all of the renovation plans have been put on hold because Oliver's afraid to change anything, doesn't want to upset Chloe any more than she already is.

By the time she gets to the tenth floor, not even halfway to her apartment she realizes that she might actually be ready for the change, might in fact be craving the change. It has nothing to do with the fact that she's just run up ten flights of stairs and is sweaty and tired, it's not about the fact that her legs feel like they're going to fall off and there's a stitch in her side that's making it hard to breathe. It's the fact that she cared enough about something to run up the steps. It's about the fact that for the first time in a long time she actually wants to breathe.

Oliver freezes when the door to the Watchtower opens and Chloe walks in. "Chloe!" he calls out, turning in a panic to the other guys standing behind him, loading supplies in bags. "Aren't you supposed to be in the park? You're usually in the park this time of day right?"

"I never made it to the park." Chloe brushes past him and sits down at her computer turning it on for the first time in months. "We've got to get that elevator fixed. I also want to talk to you about—" She stops, and turns around slowly staring at Oliver and the guys. "What's going on?" she asks them.

"Nothing," Oliver answers her reflexively, then flinches because it's obvious something is going on.

"Nothing?" Chloe asks. "You're just hanging around the Watchtower in the middle of the day, wearing your suits." She nods to the leather. "Loading weapons into bags."

"OK, so something's going on." Oliver walks over to her as the boys continue to load up their gear. "We found a possible 33.1 in Europe, Southern France more accurately. Thought we'd go check it out, see what's going on."

Chloe stares at him for a second, she's made a point to distance herself from League stuff since Jimmy's death. She knew that the life she lead, the job she had helping Oliver, had in part, contributed to Jimmy's death. Even after she reconciled herself to that fact, she still shied away from her duties as Watchtower because she no longer trusted her own judgment. "Can I come with you?"

Oliver freezes again, staring at Chloe with surprise. He looks over at the guys then back at Chloe with a sort of fond smile on his face. "Yeah, of course."

"Great, just let me get my gear." Chloe turns around to her desk, grabs a stack of post-it notes and scribbles a very hasty note to herself-Stephen Temple-wife with Cancer-Help_?-then she grabs a new bag and stuffs her laptop and all her things into it. "We should bring Emil, in case there's anyone there. We might need him."_

"That's a good idea, I'll call him on the way, tell him to meet us at the airport." Oliver nods.

"Good." Chloe grabs the post-it and shoves it in her pocket. "I've got something I want to talk to him about."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Playing Watchtower is just like riding a bike; you never really forget how to do it. They bring her up to speed on the flight and she walks them through security with ease. Oliver's suspicions are confirmed when they find a basement full of prisoners who have obviously been experimented on. They all look a little worse for wear. They're not even Metas apparently, just ordinary people. They'd been taken randomly so that Tess could test the effects of the meteors on them.

Oliver and the guys free them and bring them to the S.T.A.R Labs facility in Paris, so Emil can check them out. Dinah makes them all tea and Victor wraps them in blankets and Bart offers to go get them their favorite foods from anywhere in the world, and that's when she remembers why they do what they do.

One by one Emil gives them all a clean bill of health and Oliver guides them into the room where Chloe has set up her equipment so that she can give them a new name, a new home, a new life. In the span of three hours she completely creates fifteen unique, fool-proof identities from scratch. As she leads Emily Hayes, formerly Dana Parsons, out of the room explaining to her that AC will show her to her new apartment and hands her a card. "My personal number is on there, call me if you need anything, we can be there in seconds." She looks over her shoulder to Bart who winks. "Or if you just need to talk. I've been where you were, I know."

"Thanks." Emily grabs the card and clutches it in her fingers, giving Chloe an impromptu hug that Chloe surprises herself by returning. AC steps forward and takes Emily's arm, leading her out of the room.

"I guess it's my turn then?" someone asks and Chloe turns around confused to see a young man, probably around her age, standing up. He looks around shyly, sliding his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders up around his ears.

"I thought…" Chloe looks back at the door that AC and Emily just exited through. She was sure Emily had been the last one. She looks back at the guy and smiles. "Yeah, guess it's your turn." She motions for him to follow her into her 'office'.

"So you need a new life." Chloe turns her computer back on and looks across the desk.

"It appears that way, yes." The man nods.

"We could start with a name." Chloe says as she opens up all the programs she needs. "Anything in particular you'd like to be called."

"I've been giving this a lot of thought actually." He smiles and Chloe nods in encouragement. "Joshua, I've always liked that name."

Chloe smiles and starts typing. "Preference on last name?" He shakes his head. "OK, how about Moore?"

"Sounds great." He smiles at her.

"So, Joshua Moore," Chloe says and stops typing and looks across the table at Joshua, "who do you want to be?"

"I don't know." Joshua smiles and shrugs his shoulders. "When I was at school, I was studying Medicine. I liked it. The idea of helping people, healing people, it's nice."

"It is." Chloe nods. "I can do that." She starts typing again. "It would probably be best if you didn't go back home. From your accent I'm guessing Devon."

"Accent?" Joshua asks confused then pauses a second. "Oh right, my accent. Devon. Good guess." Joshua nods.

"A big city would be best, easy to hide in. How do you feel about London?"

"Always liked it." He smiles at her.

"London it is then." Chloe types some more. "Kings College alright with you? They have a great medical program."

"Sounds great." Joshua shrugs. He sits there for a few minutes studying his surroundings while Chloe types away furiously on her laptop.

"And done." Chloe smiles. "Now we'll have to work out some housing."

"Wait, just like that I'm in school?" Joshua leans forward. "That was much easier than last time."

"It was a little tricky." Chloe nods. "A few faked transcripts, an MCAT score good enough to get you in but not so good that people are expecting you to be a genius. Then I had to back date your application, forge an interview evaluation from your new faculty advisor."

"Oh sure." Joshua laughed. "Just a little tricky."

"Well, there is the matter of your tuition and housing." Chloe bites her lip. "That might be bit more difficult."

"Oh, right, tuition. Money." Joshua frowns. "I suppose I could just get a job."

"Work a part time job and go to med school?" Chloe shakes her head. "You'll kill yourself within a year. Besides you wouldn't even make enough money to keep you fed."

"Student loans?" Joshua leans forward.

"Not likely." Chloe shakes her head. "Your new life looks great on paper so long as you don't dig any deeper. It's going to take me a month at least to get it to the point where it will stand up to the kind of scrutiny needed for a student loan application and you don't have that kind of time, the semester starts next week. Even if I had the time, I'd rather not put your new identity out there so soon, have it come under so much scrutiny."

"So then…no school?" Joshua asks.

"I don't give up that easily." Chloe shakes her head and types some more. "It looks like you have suddenly received a great windfall. Mrs. Margaret O'Hare has died and left a trust in your name, the money to be used toward your schooling."

"Really?" Joshua smiles. "And who is Margaret O'Hare?"

"I don't know, I just made her up." Chloe chuckles then stops. "O'Hare was my grandmother's maiden name." 

_"It's very pretty," Joshua offers and Chloe goes back to her typing. _

"_I suppose she could be your Aunt—no Great Aunt, you were very close." Chloe informs him. _

"_I remember her fondly, spending Summers at her country estate." Joshua__ plays along and Chloe smiles at him. __"But where exactly did Great Aunt Margaret get the money to pay for my tuition?"_

"Oliver of course." Chloe brushes him off, as if the question is ridiculous.

"No, I couldn't possibly ask you too—it's not your place, you shouldn't—" Joshua protests.

"We want to," Chloe assures him. "And he can more than spare it, don't worry. I'll add in an allowance for housing and incidentals and it still won't even come close to what he spent on his last car. The school won't let me pay it all in advance and if I just gave you all the money it would look very suspicious so I'll have to pay it term by term. Just send me an e-mail, I'll take care of it." Chloe takes out another card and passes it across the desk. "And my numbers are on there, if you ever need anything."

"Thanks." Joshua offers her a genuine smile then.

"Now, this is going to be the hard part." Chloe sighs. "You'll have to leave your old life behind. Completely. You can't go back home, you can't take anything with you that they might be able to use to track you. Did they leave anything on you? Cell phone? Keys?"

Joshua slides the card into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. "They can track me with these?" Joshua holds the key's up to the light, a small crystal dangling of it the only adornment.

"No." Chloe shakes her head. "But I find if people don't keep the keys, they're less likely to try and go back home, have a last look around for old times' sake, maybe take a souvenir. It's easier to let go of your old life if you don't have anything to hold on to," Chloe says, talking to herself as much as she's talking to Joshua, thinking about the Watchtower, about how everything in it reminds her of Jimmy and now more than ever she wants to talk to Oliver about starting the renovations.

"It's just…" Joshua grabs the crystal and stares at it, spinning it around in his fingers. "This was my mothers. It used to hang in the kitchen window. I remember sitting at the table, watching her bake and it would sparkle in the sunlight and make rainbows on the wallpaper. When she died they said I could have anything I wanted of hers. I just wanted this." He looks up at Chloe. "I'm not sure I'm ready to part with it forever, but I don't know if I'm strong enough to keep it, knowing what it stands for."

Chloe stares at the crystal, watching the way it absorbs the light. "What if it wasn't forever?" Chloe looks at him, holding out her hand palm up. Joshua drops the keys reflexively and she swears for a second it's almost like the crystal glows. The effect is brief enough that Chloe can write it off as a trick of the light. She grabs the crystal and it's surprisingly warm to the touch. She works it off the key ring and drops the keys in her bag, holding the crystal in her palm. "What if hold onto it for you and when you're ready for it, I'll give it back to you?"

"I'd like that."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_Two days later Chloe stumbles into the Watchtower exhausted from thirty flights of stairs on top two transcontinental flights and the fact that she really hasn't slept much in the past few months. Still somehow she feels a lot better than she has in a while. She walks up one more flight to her bedroom, slides off her shoes and empties out her pockets, dropping loose change and her keys on the top of her dresser. She pauses when she sees Joshua's crystal and picks it up, turning it over in her fingers. A small smile tugs at the corner of her lips when the first rays of the sun peek through the window and hit the crystal, fracturing the light into tiny rainbows._

Chloe gasps at the effect, it reminds her of the way the sun shines through the stained glass downstairs. She looks over at the picture of her and Jimmy on the nightstand and her hand goes to her chest, reaching instinctively for his rosary. She remembers too late that she's not wearing it anymore, that it doesn't belong to her anymore and her heart twists a bit. She looks back to the crystal then walks over to her jewelry box. She digs around until she finds what she's looking for and comes away with a long silver chain. She threads the chain through the small metal loop fixed into the top of the crystal and fastens it around her neck, slipping the makeshift necklace under her shirt and she relaxes, just slightly. 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Did you…" Chloe grasps the crystal in her hands and looks over at Joshua. "Did you want it back?" she asks, dreading his answer. The thought of Joshua taking the pendant back puts such a knot in the pit of her stomach that she's afraid for a second she'll be sick. Though it has no direct connection, she's come to associate the crystal with the Watchtower. Not necessarily with Jimmy, but with change, with moving on and she's not ready to give that up.

"No." Joshua shakes his head. "I don't think…I'm not ready yet." He looks up at her. "Could you keep it for me, just a little while longer?"

"Sure." Chloe tucks the crystal under her shirt and calls out to Emil as she pushes Joshua toward the door. "We're gonna head to my cabin so I can bring everyone up to speed. Send someone as soon as you find anything OK?"

"Chloe." Emil stops her. "Can I talk to you?"

"Just wait outside," Chloe tells Joshua who nods.

"He has never been in a 33.1," Emil says when the door closes and this makes Chloe pause.

"Are you sure?" Chloe frowns. "How can you even know?"

"First of all, I don't remember him. I don't remember examining him, and I remember them all," he says. "But more specifically I remember that day, I remember that group. The drug that was being tested on them, it did not serve its intended purpose, which I'm sure was to endow the subjects with some sort of meteor power, but it did do irreparable damage to their basic DNA structure, more specifically it caused a trans-location in the 13th, 15th, and 22nd chromosomes. It's not life threatening but it is linked to infertility. As soon as he said he'd been at that 33.1, I checked, he has no mutations. He wasn't there."

"You think he's lying to me?" Chloe asks confused.

"No." Emil says. "I think he believes that everything he told you is the truth, which is even stranger. On top of all that he's got Croatoan antibodies, so that leads to the question, who is he?"

Chloe bites her lip and looks over at the door. She can see Joshua through the window, rubbing behind Malachi's ears with a huge smile on his face. "I have an idea." She turns back to Emil. "But I need to do some more research."

"Touché." Emil smiles at her. 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

When they get to Chloe's cabin Joshua stops in the doorway just to take it all in. There is an entire wall filled with large flat screen monitors. Another wall is nothing more than a huge map of the world with pins stuck haphazardly all over the place, covered in post-it that are losing their sticking power, hastily written notes in many different handwritings, and circles over certain locations. There are huge filing cabinets in the corner, the drawers overstuffed to the point that they barely close anymore and Joshua smiles slightly. It's the end of the world but there is still filing.

"Come on," Chloe says softly to him, a look of confusion on her face as she studies him. "They won't bite."

It's then that Joshua notices the people in the room. He recognizes Sam and Oliver from earlier. There are a group of guys in the corner and Chloe rattles off a series of names- Victor, Bart, Dean, Chuck, and Lt. Colonel Archer. The blonde woman, Jo, he already knows.

There's a girl sitting at the table, with two guys behind her that Chloe tells him are Castiel and Clark. The girl he recognizes right off the bat. Joshua didn't sleep much on the boat, the motion of the ocean combined with a solid knot of fear in his stomach wasn't really conducive to getting his recommended eight hours. Every now and then General Lane would sit up with him, tell him these crazy stories about his oldest daughter, Lois. He showed him a picture once. The girl in the picture had been smiling and carefree and the girl in front of him was the exact opposite. Her eyes are red and puffy from crying but there's no mistaking that face.

Clark puts a comforting hand on her neck, an intimate gesture that seems to loosen Lois' muscles instantly. One of the men in the back, Dean, catches Chloe's eye as soon as she walks in the room and excuses himself from his conversation before walking over to her. "Hey," he whispers softly, reaching out and grabbing the tips of her fingers in his hand, the lightest of touches but still somehow infinitely more intimate that anything Joshua's ever seen.

"I'm fine," Chloe assures him, her voice taking on a fonder tone than Joshua's heard from her today. "How's Lois holding up?"

"As well as can be expected." Dean shrugs, his thumb ghosting over her knuckles. "Lucy's a mess though, Clark had to get Emil to sedate her."

"Poor kid," Chloe says and Joshua can see her physically resisting the urge to lean into Dean.

"She'll be alright, she's strong," Dean assures Chloe. "She's a Lane."

"They do come from hearty stock," Chloe agrees.

"So what…" he trails off and looks over at Joshua.

"I don't know yet. I need to talk to Chuck and Cass and then I'll get back to you." Chloe squeezes Dean's hand and lets it drop back to his side. "Can you keep an eye on him? Introduce him to everyone, explain what's going on, what we do here," Chloe says.

Joshua thinks bitterly that he doesn't need a babysitter but he bites his tongue before he has a chance to speak the words out loud. He watches as she walks over to Lois and sits down next to her. Chloe pulls something out of her pocket, it looks like a set of dog tags with three rings hanging off of them and she passes them over to Lois whispering something low and steady.

With trembling hands, Lois takes the proffered items and clenches them in her fist. She screws her eye shut tightly and nods as Chloe keeps on talking until she can't take it anymore and breaks down, lying her head on Chloe's shoulder, as Chloe attempts to sooth her. Chloe looks up at the man whose hand is still on Lois' neck and offers him a sad smile, he reaches over and squeezes Chloe's shoulder and Joshua can see her pushing back her own tears. It isn't until that moment that he remembers Chloe was the General's niece, in over half the stories that he told about Lois, Chloe featured prominently. They were like sisters, which means the General was probably like a father to the girl.

Joshua turns away, leaving them to their private grief and sees Dean also watching Chloe. His jaw tenses, he's angry and for a minute Joshua thinks he's angry at Chloe but then he understands, he's angry _for_ Chloe. "So-" Joshua says loudly, calling Dean's attention to him instead of Chloe. "Sam and Oliver explained a little bit to me earlier."

"Good." Dean offers him a tight smile. "But knowing my dorky brother, he only told you about the boring stuff." Dean claps a hand on Joshua's shoulder and walks him to the back of the room toward the group of guys he'd been talking to before. 

Chloe watches as Dean talks to Joshua, introducing him around. She turns to Clark and Castiel who are also watching him intently but she never stops rubbing soothing circles on Lois' back. "So who is he?" Clark asks and Lois raises her head, looking from Joshua to Chloe.

"I don't know," Chloe admits to them, hating that she doesn't have better answers for her grieving cousin.

"I need to check on Lucy." Lois stands up, still clutching the dog tags in her fist. "And I'm kind of tired." She excuses herself and Chloe nods letting her know it's OK. Clark grabs her arm and leads her to the door. Lois stops and turns to Chloe. "Was he worth my father's life?"

"I don't know." Chloe swallows the lump in her throat. "But I swear to you, I'll find out."

Lois nods and allows Clark to take her to their cabin.

"Who is he really?" Castiel asks, echoing Clark's earlier question.

"I _really_ don't know." Chloe sighs, absently clutching her pendant again. "He's got Croatoan antibodies." Castiel turns his attention to Chloe and raises an eyebrow. "He's been infected and cured. He says he has no idea how, doesn't remember getting infected much less getting a cure so the only logical explanation is—"

"He cured himself," Castiel says looking back over at Joshua in a new light.

"What do you think of him?" Chloe gets up and moves to stand beside him, giving her a better view of Joshua, bumping her arm against Castiel's. "You've been staring at him pretty hard."

"I can't see him." Castiel frowns.

"You mean like me?" Chloe looks intrigued. "Like, if you're not looking at him, he disappears?"

"No." Castiel nods in Joshua's direction. "He is standing next to Dean, right?" Chloe nods. "I'm looking right at him and I still can't see him. It's like there is a hole in the world where he is."

"Well that's interesting." Chloe bites her lip.

"Yes, and unsettling." Castiel glares. "I don't like it."

"You and me both." Chloe sighs. "We've met before. Joshua and I." Castiel turns to Chloe almost annoyed that she kept this bit of information to herself. "We saved him from a 33.1 in France." Chloe frowns remembering Emil's words. "Except we didn't."  
"I don't understand." Castiel frowns at her.

"Neither do I." Chloe smiles at him. "When I figure it out, you'll be the first to know." She catches Chuck's eye and motions him over. "So?" she asks expectantly.

"He's a very nice young man," Chuck answers after a minute confused. "Polite actually. It's a refreshing change of pace."

Chloe rolls her eyes. "Do you know him?" Chloe asks. "Have you seen him before?"

"Don't get out to England much." Chuck shakes his head and Chloe glares. "Oh you mean like, in a dream?"

"Yeah." Chloe resists the urge to use a sarcastic tone.

Chuck turns around and takes a better look at Joshua. "Maybe," he says slowly squinting. "It feels like I have, or more like I should have but I don't remember specifically…I'm not sure."

"There's a lot of that going around." Chloe groans in frustration. "Apparently my uncle was having dreams about him, for weeks before they even ever met. All he knew was that he had to get Joshua to America, to me and then everything would be alright." She stares at Joshua for another minute. Dean's telling him a story, one that Sam's obviously heard a million times as rolls his eyes and that also likely involves Sam in some unflattering scenario if the laughter and the looks the other's are giving him are anything to go by.

"Sammy," Chloe says over the laughter calling everyone's attention to her. "It's getting late, could you show Joshua to your cabin. I was hoping you'd let him bunk with you, save him from suffering in the general population." She doesn't say it's because she wants him somewhere close by, with someone she can trust, it just goes understood. "He can have Dean's bed."

"He can?" Dean looks at her amused.

"Sure." Chloe frowns at him. "You don't need it."

The whole room seems to go eerily quiet as Chloe realizes what she's just announced in front of everyone. "I don't?" Dean asks her a soft smile on his face, a hopeful tone in his voice.

"No, you don't." Chloe shakes her head, biting her lip. "Jo, I need you to spread the word around camp, tomorrow night we'll be having a memorial for General Lane. Tell Lois and Lucy, and Captain Grant and his men."

Jo pauses for a second unsure but nods. Slowly everyone trickles out of the cabin leaving only Chloe and Dean.

"Why are we having a memorial for the General?" Dean asks. "When…when your dad died you said we couldn't afford memorials."

"We had one for Jason," Chloe reminds him. "And Sam Lane was a decorated four star General, he deserves to have a proper send off. Besides, Lois and Lucy need this way more than I did." Chloe walks to the bedroom and sits down at the edge to take her shoes off. "And while they're all distracted we can sneak off and get Joshua into the city."

"And why are we sneaking Joshua into the city?" Dean asks pulling his shirt over his head.

"Because we need an X-ray machine." Chloe smiles crawling up the mattress to lay her head on the pillow. "And I don't need anyone to know what we're doing."

"You've got a theory," Dean says to her, comprehension dawning on his face as he joins her on the bed.

"The beginnings of a theory," Chloe corrects his assumption.

"You want to share it?" Dean brushes her hair behind her ear.

"Not yet. Not until I know more." Chloe shakes her head.

"OK, I can wait," Dean assures her, giving her a soft kiss. She closes her eyes and sighs deeply, thinking she may actually get some sleep tonight.

"So, I don't need my bed anymore?" he asks his voice teasing, a smirk pulling the corners of his mouth up.

"Shut up." Chloe rolls her eyes and when he doesn't stop smirking at her, she rolls over completely facing away from him.

She feels his hand slide over her hip and settles firmly on her stomach. Then she feels him, solid along her back. "Maybe I'll move my stuff in here tomorrow," he offers, his voice no more than a whisper and Chloe's not sure if it's the proximity that sends a tingle down her body or his words.

"Maybe," Chloe says softly as he places a small kiss on the back of her neck.

**December 25, 2011  
**

She'd been sleeping pretty steady recently, she isn't quite ready to admit that it likely has a lot to do with the body curled around her at the moment. But tonight, after two hours of staring at the wall without even a droop of her eyes she resigns herself to the fact that sleep is just not going to come, and she knows for a fact it has everything to do with the body lying in Dean's old bed.

She crawls out from underneath the warmth of the covers and grabs Dean's hoodie which is basically hers now because she wears it far more often than he does. It has nothing to do with the fact that it smells like him as Lois suggested and everything to do with the fact that it's warm and comfortable. She fixes a pot of coffee on auto pilot and sits in front of the computer tapping the bottom screen to bring it to life. "Oracle," Chloe calls out as the screens blink a few times, sort of like a person trying to open their eyes upon waking. "Oracle," Chloe says when she hears a very unnecessary yawn.

"What?" Oracle asks, her voice slightly slurred. "I was sleeping."

"You were not," Chloe scoffs. "Computers don't sleep."

"That is untrue, even rudimentary computers have a sleep mode," Oracle bristles.

"Sleep mode and sleeping are not the same thing." Chloe holds her fingers over the keyboard, unsure what exactly to do. She knows she's not going to find anything on Joshua Moore because she created Joshua Moore a little over three years ago. "Oracle, do you still have access to all my old files?"

"Of course." Oracle lets out another superfluous yawn and a new screen pops up, an exact replica of the desktop on Chloe's old laptop.

"Find me any mention of Joshua Moore."

"There are only the things you created. School transcripts, credit scores, tax returns. The usual." As she mentions things, they pop up on screen. Chloe sees his Med school application, his trust papers, a birth certificate-all created by her.

"Does it mention anywhere who he was before he was Joshua Moore?" Chloe stares at the screen.

"No," Oracle says after a minute. "Did he not tell you?"

"No." Chloe shakes her head.

"Perhaps if you had a fingerprint I could run it through the systems sill online," Oracle says.

Chloe pauses for a minute then pulls the chain around her neck and over her head. She stares at the crystal, it feels strange in over three years, she's never taken it off, not once. Her chest feels tight as she lays it on the pad to her right.

"Scanning." Oracle tells her and a blue light runs the length of the crystal. "I detect three separate prints. One belongs to you, one belongs to Dean and the other…" Chloe picks up the chain and places it back over her head, breathing slightly better than she had a minute ago. Picture after picture flies across the screen more rapidly that she can even detect them until they stop, "the other is not in the system."

"Anywhere?" Chloe asks.

"Anywhere," Oracle confirms.

"Did you check everything, even the White House database?" Chloe asks after a minute.

"Oh no, I am sorry in all my infinite wisdom I forgot to check the White House database," Oracle says with what can only be described as a sarcastic tone. Chloe shakes her head, Oracle certainly has the knowledge to modulate her voice programming to imitate sarcasm but she should have no reason to do so. She's been hanging out with Dean too much.

"You've been hanging out with Dean too much," Chloe says giving voice to her thoughts and gets up and pours herself a cup of coffee.

"Chloe, may I ask you a question?" Oracle sounds hesitant but Chloe doesn't notice this time.

"Sure." She sighs knowing the coffee isn't going to help her in her quest for sleep but not caring at the moment.

"What will happen to me?" Oracle asks.

"What will happen to you when?" Chloe turns to the screen and frowns.

"At the end of the world," Oracle elaborates. "What will happen to me when the world ends?"

"The world's not going to end." Chloe shakes her head forcefully.

"But if it does," Oracle presses her.

"It won't," Chloe says hoping she might actually believe it this time.

"But if it does," Oracle whispers, actually whispers. "I am a machine, as you so constantly remind me, I am not a human. I exist only in binary. I have no soul, I have no heaven to go to when I…when I die. So what will happen to me?"

Chloe pauses, her eyes frozen on the screen. "You believe in heaven?" she asks the computer seriously. "You believe in souls?"

"Logically, the concept makes no sense." Oracle sounds frustrated. "I know every biological aspect of the human body, I have studied it intently, and there is no soul, no physical representation of it anyway. But I've read your Bible-"

"You've read the Bible?" Chloe blanches.

"There are many copies online," Oracle says. "I find that I enjoy the King James Version the most. This concept of a human soul, of a life after death, it…appeals to me."

"You can access the Bible online?" Chloe sits down.

"Yes," Oracle answers her. "I can access many publications online."

"I want you to try and find something for me. It's a paper, written by a man named Alan Turing called; 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence' can you find that?" Chloe sits down in front of the screen again.

"I have found it," Oracle says.

"I want you to read it, and pay close attention on the section called the Theological Objection." Chloe leans back and sips her coffee. After a minute Oracle makes a strange sound. "Did you read it?"

"Yes," Oracle says.

"What did he say?" Chloe sits up straighter.

"He said that if you are to go on the assumption that God is all powerful, you must then also agree that God can bestow a soul upon anything that he wishes. The example used in the paper is an elephant," Oracle explains.

"And if God can give an elephant a soul," Chloe theorizes, "then what's to stop him giving a computer one also if he so chooses?"

They are both quiet for a minute. "You think God…could give me a soul?" Oracle asks hopefully.

"I think if God wanted to he could give you a soul yes," Chloe answers carefully. "And I think the mere fact that you want a soul, could be just the thing to make him give you one."

"But—" Oracle falters, and Chloe has never heard Oracle falter before. "Based on the timeline I have managed to piece together using what Dean and Castiel have told us, God disappeared a good year and a half before you even created me." Chloe sat up, Oracle must be upset if she's admitting that Chloe had a part in her existence. "Also, it did not occur to me that I should even want one until a few months ago. He would have had to have known ahead of time, before he left, that I would become sentient enough and would want a soul and—"

"He did know." Chloe cuts Oracle off, something's there, something big begging her attention, edging at the corner of her consciousness. "God is Omniscient, he knows everything that ever was… and everything that ever will be." It's right there, it feels, though Chloe's never had one before, like an epiphany. "He would most definitely know ahead of time-can you excuse me?" Chloe asks setting the coffee cup on the counter and heading for the door.

She's halfway across the camp before she realizes she's running. She yanks open the doors to the chapel and bursts inside. "He knew," Chloe screams across the expanse of the sanctuary. Only after the words leave her mouth does she realize that Father Mac isn't alone. The chapel is full of people. Chloe checks her watch and sees that it's just a little after one in the morning. Christmas. He'd been holding Midnight Mass. "Sorry." She blushes sheepishly and moves to stand in the corner.

Chloe stands quietly as Father Mac concludes the service. When the last person leaves, Father Mac walks over to her with a smile. "You were saying something?" Father Mac asks. "Or rather screaming something?"

All of her anger and excitement at the discovery comes crashing back in on her. "He knew," Chloe repeats herself, brushing past Father Mac and walking to the front of the room.

"Who knew what exactly?" Father Mac walks up behind her.

"God, he knows everything right? Omniscience and all that?" Chloe slides into the front pew. "He knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen right?"

"That's the theory, as I have yet to meet him personally, I can't say for sure." Father Mac sits next to her.

"So then when he decided to take his little human holiday, he knew what would happen? He knew that if he left, Dean would step off the rack. He knew that the angels would rebel, that the seals would be broken, that Lucifer would rise. He knew all of this, that we would end up here, in this place." She looks around. "He probably even knew we would one day have this conversation."

Father Mac considers it for a moment. "It's very likely."

"But he still did it, still went through with it, even knowing all of that?" Chloe says then turns to Father Mac. "Why?"

"I wish I could explain to you the whims of God, Chloe but that is not a power that I nor likely anyone on this planet, even your personal angel Castiel, has," Father Mac tells her and Chloe slumps into the pew. "I can't tell you why he did what he did but I have to believe that there is a bigger plan in place and that we'll know when we need to know."

"That may be good enough for you." Chloe shakes her head. "But it's nowhere near good enough for me because I need to know, I need to know now," she yells in frustration and it echoes through the chapel. "Do you believe in destiny?" Chloe asks him after a minute of silence.

"Is this about the Prophecy?" Father Mac asks her and she nods. "Do you believe in destiny?" he asks her.

"I believe that there are thing in our lives that we can't control, things that are going to happen no matter how hard we work against them." Chloe pauses thinking of an old buried fear, that she would turn out like her mother, wasting away in some dark corner of a mental institution, that there was nothing she could do to stop it, it was genetics. She thinks then about all the people she's met in her life, who through some accident, some freak occurrence have found themselves the recipients of powers beyond their wildest dreams. "But I also believe in free will. I believe that people make choices every day and they should be held responsible for those choices," Chloe says thinking of all those people who found themselves with powers and how some of them chose to use their powers for good and some of them chose to do evil.

"Destiny versus free will is an argument that has been discussed since the birth of man. It was argued by Plato and Aristotle long before I came along and it will be argued by greater minds than mine long after I'm gone." Father Mac pauses gathering his thoughts. "I believe that God gave us free will because he wanted us to exercise it. I also think that in the end, whatever happened was supposed to happen and when the dust settles, the only comfort we have are the choices we made that brought us there." He tilts his head and frowns at her. "I'm sorry, that probably wasn't much of a help was it? You just have to have faith," Father Mac tells her.

"Everyone keeps saying that, what I want to know is why." Chloe stares at him. "Tell me why exactly I should have faith. I don't understand your faith."

"Ahh." Father Mac nods. "I suspected as much."

"I don't know how you can simply blindly follow someone you don't even know, just put your life in his hands and believe that no matter what he's going to magically make everything OK." Chloe jumps up and starts pacing.

"How is my faith in God any different than the faith that these people in the camp have instilled in you?"

"It _is_ different," Chloe argues.

"How?" Father Mac asks her.

"Because I've proven myself. I've stood on the frontlines with them, I have fought alongside them and I'll continue to fight with them, _for_ them, until I physically can't anymore."

"And God doesn't fight alongside you, alongside everyone?" Father Mac asks.

Chloe just keeps on glaring. "I've never seen him there. Have you?"

Father Mac lifts his eyebrow. "So because I can't see God, he doesn't exist?"

"I'm not…" Chloe shakes her head in frustration. "I'm not trying to get into a philosophical argument on the existence of God. I believe in God. I really truly do. After everything that's happened to me, to everyone, that's not even a question anymore, it can't be." Chloe sighs. "But see the knowledge that he's actually real, doesn't change anything for me. It doesn't make everything suddenly OK. It doesn't automatically mean that everything that he's ever done is right, that he knows best. Dean spent his whole life not believing in God, thinking there was no way he could possibly exist, and now that he knows God does…it's like He is the answer to everything, all is forgiven and I just can't do that, and no one can seem to understand that."

"I can," Father Mac tells her. "Everyone is entitled to their own relationship with God and just because yours is different from someone else's doesn't make it wrong."

"But that's just it." Chloe shakes her head. "I don't have a relationship with God. For twenty eight years of my life God was nowhere to be found and now he shows up out of the blue and I'm expected to just welcome him with open arms?"

"First of all, I can tell you that God did not just show up out of the blue. Though at times it may not have seemed like it, he's always been there with you." Chloe opens her mouth to protest. "Secondly, no one is expecting you to do anything. I am a firm believer that each person will find God in his or her own time, in his or her own way and there is no right way or wrong way." Father Mac stands and lays a comforting hand on Chloe's shoulder. "While you may be of the belief that God does in fact exist, I think your problem lies in the fact that you have yet to actually find him. Castiel was looking for God and he found you." Father Mac points out. "Who knows what you could find if you go looking."

"You think I should look for God?" Chloe asks. "You think that will change anything?"

"I don't see how it can't." Father Mac shrugs.

Chloe opens her mouth to say something but stops. She's not sure exactly how to say she thinks she may have found God, quite recently in fact, she's just not sure what to do with him.

_She said I'm tired_

_Come get me off the merry-go-round_

_I'm wired_

_Well heaven must have sent you,_

_to save me for the rapture_

_-Oasis_


	15. You Can't Always Get What You Want

You Can't Always Get What You Want

_I saw her today at the reception_

_In her glass was a bleeding man_

_And she was practiced at the art of deception_

_I could tell by her blood-stained hands_

_Chloe twirls the sliver chain in her fingertips, spinning the crystal dangling from it around and around, mesmerizing her almost to the point that she thinks if she looks at it any, longer she could find herself falling into a deep trance. She stops the spinning abruptly by grabbing the crystal with her free hand and holding it tight. _

_It's warm in her palm, it's always been warm to the touch but Chloe's never really thought about it before now. "That's not normal," she says out loud._

_"What's not normal?" he calls from the kitchen area. She can hear the unnerving clatter of pots and pans smashing together and she winces. _

_"You OK in there?" _

_"I'm trying to figure out your organizational system here." He grunts which is followed by even more clattering. "You don't really have a specific place for anything do you?"_

_"It's a small kitchen, you put stuff where it fits," Chloe calls over her shoulder, her eyes still on the crystal. "If you'll just tell me what you're looking for, I could help you." _

_"No, I've got it. I'm supposed to be cooking for you, remember," he calls back. "What's not normal?" he asks her again. _

_"It's warm." Chloe answers opening her palm to stare at the offending object. "It's not supposed to be warm." _

_"OK, so what does that mean?" he asks her. _

_"I'm not sure yet." Chloe tilts her palm and lets the crystal fall towards the table. She closes her palm again at the last second, trapping the chain in between her fingers right before it hits the table's surface. _

_"Why exactly are you so sure that it means anything?" he asks. "What makes you think it's even important enough to mean anything?"_

_"Because Joshua gave it to me and Joshua's important. I know that much, so it has to be important too, right?" He doesn't answer, she's not even sure if he's listening but she keeps on. "And I know it's going to sound crazy but I've gone over it and over it in my head and I swear, when he gave it to me, it…glowed." _

_"Glowed?" he asks. "What do you mean it glowed?" _

_Chloe tries to figure out how to explain it to someone who wasn't there without making it seem like it was a trick of the light. "Nothing, never mind." She slips the chain back over her head and the crystal settles comfortably against her chest. "So what are you making me for dinner?" Just as she asks, a plate with two raw hamburgers is set down in front of her. "Interesting choice but…traditionally don't you cook these?" She turns around but he's not behind her anymore, he's gone back to digging through her bottom cabinets for something. _

_"I'm getting to that," he says in frustration and she hears another round of clattering dishes. "When I volunteered to cook, did I forget to mention that I really only know how to grill?" _

_"But I don't have a grill," she says biting her lip. _

_"You do now, bought one this afternoon," he informs her. _

_Chloe pauses and looks around her small apartment not seeing a grill in sight. "Is it an invisible grill?" she jokes._

_"I set it up on the roof. We'll be dining alfresco this evening," he tells her._

_"You haven't happened to look out the window recently have you?" she points out. She can tell when he does because she hears even more clattering and some very colorful swearing just as a loud crash of thunder rips through the air. _

_"It's raining," he calls to her. _

_"Yeah." Chloe stands up. "This can be fixed though." She gets up. "I happen to have a grill pan." _

_"Where? I guarantee I've been through every drawer and cabinet in this kitchen and I saw no grill pan," he says trying to stuff her pots back into the shelf under the sink._

_"It's in the top shelf of my bedroom closet." Chloe laughs and walks into the bedroom._

_She looks around the room slowly, something feels off. It suddenly feels different. She looks more closely and finds a few things that seem out of place. There is a heavy watch lying on the nightstand. It's familiar but there's a nagging voice in the back of her head that reminds her Jimmy didn't wear a watch. The desk in the corner that's normally buried under mountains of camera equipment and pictures in various stages of development is now covered with thick leather bound books and random papers and news clippings. _

_"Sure, of course, why didn't I think to look for a pan in the bedroom?" he yells from across the apartment._

_"I have a system…" Chloe pauses and looks at the alarm clock on her nightstand. Sure enough it reads 7:18 p.m. Ever since the first time she became aware that this place was a dream, she'd always looked at it as sort of existing outside of time and space, not having any relative positioning in either one, and definitely not something as specific as 7:18 p.m. _

_She swallows and turns around, walking slowly back into the living room. There are more changes out here. Her couch has been replaced with a warm brown leather sofa and the television is practically lost in the middle of wall to wall bookshelves all stuffed to the gills with old leather bound editions. It's likely this is where the books from the desk came from. _

_She makes her way over to the fireplace and stares at the mantle. There's the usual pictures; her and Lois at the fair, next to that is a picture of her and Jimmy taken at their engagement party. But there is a third picture on the mantle, a picture that has never been there before and Chloe reaches out a tentative hand to grab it. _

_It's a picture of her. She's standing, smiling blindly into the camera, she can't ever remember herself being so happy, it doesn't even appear to matter to her that she is covered from head to toe in something red. Standing next to her, arm draped casually, intimately across her shoulder, also covered head to toe in red stuff and offering the camera the same blinding smile, is Dean. "I don't remember this," Chloe mumbles to herself. _

_"Spain?" a voice says from behind her. "We did have a lot to drink that night but you eventually admitted that I was right and you were wrong and a giant tomato fight was a hell of a lot more fun than it sounded. Could you not find the grill pan?"_

_Chloe spins around and freezes as she stares at the man in front of her. It's not Jimmy, it's not Jimmy at all. It's Dean. He's standing there staring back at her, a smile plastered on his face, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows looking far too at home in her apartment._

_"Chloe?" Dean frowns when she doesn't move and takes a step toward her. _

**December 25, 2011**

"Chloe!" Dean calls out to her and her head jerks up from where it's resting on top of her knees. She spins around, unfolding herself painfully from the chair that she'd somehow managed fall asleep in. Dean is smiling indulgently at her but she can't bring herself to return it, she can't get the image of him in her apartment, where Jimmy should have been, out of her head. His smile falters then disappears all together and he coughs uncomfortably. "Everything's set for the memorial service, they'll probably start in a few minutes. The Jeeps are loaded and ready to go, everyone's just waiting on us."

"Joshua?" She stretches out her back and her neck and winces at the soreness in her muscles.

"Sam's showing him around the camp, keeping him busy." Dean steps further into the room.

"Good. Did you get us some back up?" She grabs for Dean's hoodie then stops herself and walks into the bedroom to grab an old sweatshirt of her own.

"Yeah I got a few guys." Dean nods.

"They'll be discreet?" Chloe asks and Dean nods. She'd much rather use her own people but she doesn't want to raise too many questions if they all leave the camp. She needs Victor to help her get the machine up and running. Clark coming is completely out of the question, Lois needs him too much. Oliver wanted to come but she though he needed to be there for Lois too. Jo had volunteered, unsure if she could stand another memorial so soon after Jason and though Chloe really didn't want her to come, she understood and so she relented. She isn't expecting a huge Croat presence but she isn't going to take any chances either.

"OK, call Sam. We'll leave when everyone else is distracted by the memorial." Chloe moves to walk past him and he grabs her arm.

Her whole body stiffens and his frown deepens even further. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she assures him, offering him the best smile she can muster; even she knows it's not convincing. "I'm great. Let's go."

They're halfway to the Jeeps when Sam emerges from the woods with Joshua at his side, who starts to get confused as they bypass the archery range where the Memorial is being held and make their way to Chloe.

"The Jeeps are loaded, gassed up and ready to go." Chloe tells Sam who hurries past her to claim a seat.

"Wait, we're not going to the Memorial?" Joshua stops walking and looks from the Jeeps where Jo, Dean, Victor and a few other guys that Joshua hasn't met yet are sitting, very heavily armed, to the archery range where the rest of the camp is, listening intently while Father Mac talks about the fleeting nature of life.

"No, we need to go into town," Chloe says. "We need to get you to a hospital."

"A hospital?" Joshua asks concerned. "But Dr. Hamilton said I had a clean bill of health."

"There are a few more tests we need to run," Chloe explains. "There is some equipment that Emil doesn't have in his lab."

"So because you want to run more tests, I can't go to the memorial? How is that fair?" Joshua asks her.

"I'm not really in the business of fair. I don't have to be, perks of being the boss. Now get in the Jeep." She turns around walks toward the closest vehicle but Joshua doesn't follow her.

"No," Joshua says but Chloe doesn't stop walking. "He gave his life to get me here and I can't even pay my respects?" Joshua asks angrily. This does make Chloe stop and she turns slowly.

"He gave his life to get you to me, because he thought that you were important. Now it's my job to make sure that he didn't die in vain. So you know how you can pay your respects? By getting in the Jeep," Chloe tells him.

Joshua looks over his shoulder where Lois is walking up to stand in the front of the crowd, then back at Chloe before storming past her and climbing into the Jeep. Chloe starts to turn and follow him but Lois begins to talk and something makes her pause.

"My father was a great man. He believed in this country and everything it stood for and dedicated his life to serving, even when his country didn't believe in him." Chloe swallows the lump in her throat. "He sacrificed a lot while me and my sister were growing up, missing recitals and science fairs and school plays but he was there when it counted, for his family, and his country, so much so that he gave his life fighting for us. But my father is not the only casualty of this war, not by far so we thought, if it was alright with you, that we'd share this memorial with all the others who've lost their lives." Lois coughs and turns to Lucy, who hands her a thick stack of papers.

"Brian Darden, Suzanne Tucker, Colleen Rodd, Kenneth Price, Lauren and Tim Nichols, Curt Gilliam, Dale Macias," Lois reads.

"She's reading the list," Chloe whispers in astonishment as Lois reads aloud the names on the list of the dead. Lois looks up for a second, searching past the crowd until she catches sight of Chloe. She offers her a small nod but never stops reading. Chloe turns and climbs up into the Jeep. Dean hands her the keys and she almost drops them when Lois speaks the next name on the list.

"Gabe Sullivan," she says, pausing only briefly before moving on.

Chloe's hand is shaking as she sticks the keys into the ignition and starts the car. She grips the gear shift tightly but relaxes when she feels Dean's comforting hand on top of hers. "Let's go," he calls to the other two drivers and she pulls onto the road that leads out of the camp.

The drive into town is quiet. The only radio station that's still broadcasting is the official White House station and it's not like they're playing the Top 40 Hits of yesterday and today. It's just a guy, one guy, the same guy every time Chloe's tuned in, telling people the location of refugee camps and Red Cross centers, explaining the proper way to deal with the Croat infected and how to tell if someone you know has been possessed by a demon. Chloe would rather not listen to that at the moment, so she settles for silence.

Joshua is in the back, arms crossed over his chest defiantly, purposefully not looking at Chloe. She can tell he wants to say something to her, can tell he wants to yell and scream but for the moment he's managing to keep it all bottled up. Chloe understands his anger, the last things she wants to be doing right now is driving down a deserted highway on her way to an equally deserted town to give someone an x-ray. She would much rather be at the memorial, or sleeping, really anywhere but here but 'want' is a concept that she gave up long ago.

The place is ghost town and when they pull up in front of the hospital it takes Chloe a second to collect herself because all she can remember is the last time she was here. All she can see is herself and a few other hunters carrying Jason's body out through the front doors, a sheet draped over him, Jason's blood staining the crisp white a deep red.

"Chloe."

Dean puts a hand on her arm to snap her out of it and she turns to see Jo is obviously realizing the same thing that she is. She's frozen on the sidewalk, unable to go any further. Chloe hadn't even made the connection before now that she'd be bringing her to the place where her boyfriend died.

Wordlessly, Chloe jumps out of the Jeep and walks over to Jo, pulling her attention away from the building as everyone else gathers around. "Alright, X-ray's on the third floor. There's a generator in the basement, we left it because it was too small to do us any good but it should be just enough to power the machine for an hour or so." Victor nods and he and Castiel head into the hospital to find the generator and bring it to the third floor. "I want two guys out here, but the rest of you inside, go floor by floor, room by room and clear everything. I don't want any surprises."

"Yes ma'am." They all nod and fan out leaving Dean, Jo, Sam and Joshua standing on the sidewalk.

"Let's do this," Chloe says heading into the building.

There are a few false starts before Victor manages to get the x-ray machine up and running, then a good twenty minutes where they all stand around, realizing that none of them has the first idea how to actually work said machine.

"Why do you keep looking at me?" Joshua asks Chloe, annoyed.

"You went to Med school."

"Yeah, for two years before _someone_ disappeared along with my tuition money," Joshua points out. "I had to drop out before we got to the class on how to work the x-ray machine."

"Oh." Chloe pauses, suddenly guilty. She hadn't realized until this moment that everything she'd set up working as Watchtower had been abandoned that day that Cass, Sam and Dean had relocated her. "Sorry about that."

"You can do apologies later," Victor says holding up the radio. "I've got Emil on the line."

With Emil talking him through it, Victor manages to get a complete body x-ray of Joshua with only minutes to spare before the generator craps out. They all gather together in a room at the end of the hall. The one with the best light exposure, as Victor tapes the films to the window.

"Those are my bones?" Joshua steps forward, one finger tracing the patterns on his rib cage. "What's all over them?" He turns to Chloe.

"Protection symbols," Chloe answers him, squinting to study the images better. "Very ancient and very powerful."

"They're everywhere," Victor says pointing to the shots of Joshua's arms and even his fingers. "Just like yours."

Chloe shakes her head. "No, not just like mine." She's seen her x-rays, made Oliver show them to her and she studied them for hours trying to find some answers in them. "Do you see it?" Chloe turns to Castiel.

"I do." He nods.

"What are we supposed to be seeing here?" Sam asks confused.

"On my x-rays, it was obvious that the symbols had been carved into my bones. If you looked closely you could see where the bone had been scratched and chipped, the edges are jagged and cracked." Chloe moves over to the largest x-ray, Joshua's femur and points to the symbols. "But here, the edge are smooth, rounded, the symbols themselves are seamless, pristine."

"Which means?" Dean asks confused.

"His bones weren't carved," Castiel explains. "They were made that way; the symbol is a part of the structure of the bone."

"Hold on, are you saying I was born with these?" Joshua looks at them. "But that's impossible right? There's no way I've had these for twenty six years and no one's noticed."

"You weren't born with them, not exactly. He didn't say born, he said made," Chloe confesses. "You were made with them. And I think you'll find, if we were to have Emil take a sample, these bones would be at most, four years old."

"I don't…" Joshua frowns at her a desperate look of confusion in his eyes.

"Wait a minute, hold on." Dean steps forward. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" He steals a look at Joshua.

"He's the vessel." Castiel nods.

"_The_ vessel?" Dean asks. "_God's_ vessel?" Everyone turns their attention to Joshua now, who's finding it harder and harder to breathe. "He's God?"

"Yes," Chloe says definitively, because now there is no doubt in her mind.

"You guys are crazy," Joshua pants out, on the verge of hyperventilating. "Certifiable." He shakes his head backing away from them.

"Joshua, just calm down." Chloe takes a step forward and he jumps back from her, like she's poisonous.

"No, I'm not going to calm down. I was dragged from my home, from my friends and brought here and for what? Because you think I'm some sort of vessel? For God?" He shakes his head. "No, you're wrong, you don't…you're just wrong." He turns and takes off down the hall.

"Son of a bitch." Chloe groans and makes a move to go after him.

"Just give him a minute," Dean offers just as Chloe's radio comes to life.

"We've got Croats at the South entrance, ten to twelve, preparing to enter the building," someone reports.

"Roger that, heading South," another hunter responds.

"We don't have a minute. Go help with the Croats, I've got him," Chloe says taking off in the same direction Joshua had gone. 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The thing about a large deserted hospital is that there are tons of places to hide. He wouldn't go outside, the others would see him, and he's not stupid enough to go off on his own. Chloe's pretty sure he's still in the hospital, that he just needs a minute to himself, time to digest the news alone without any distractions. Chloe checks every room on the third floor before reaching the stairs and has to make an educated guess that Joshua was probably headed for the exits. She can hear the sound of gunfire from outside and prays that she can reach him before anyone, or anything else does. She's about to start searching the rooms on the second floor when she sees a pair of trainers sticking out from behind the nurses' station.

Chloe breathes a sigh of relief and moves in that direction, only to stop when she spots two Croats at the other end of the hall, checking in each room as they make their way toward her and Joshua. She watches them carefully, waiting until they're both looking in the other direction before sprinting across the hall and diving behind the desk at the nurses' station. She scrambles up quickly and moves next to Joshua, pressing her back against the wall and pulls her knees up to her chest. He opens his mouth to shout at her and she clamps a hand over it.

"Two Croats, three o'clock," she whispers. "And I have no gun." Joshua nods to let her know he understands and she lowers her hand. She knows exactly where her gun is, it's sitting on the table in the x-ray room where she'd set it down earlier. She's got her sword but that would require close combat conditions and while she's relatively assured of her ability to cure the virus, she can't be sure that Joshua's experience wasn't just a one-time thing and there's no way she's going to risk one of them getting to him while she takes care of the other.

"We're going to have to time this very carefully." Chloe leans over him and steals a peek. "Somehow we've got to make it to the stairs."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Joshua snaps bitterly. "You're crazy."

"Yeah well, I'm all you've got right now," Chloe snaps right back at him, then softens. "I'm not crazy," she whispers. "And you know I'm not crazy. If you really think about it, take in all the facts, how my uncle found you, that you have antibodies for a virus that has no cure, and probably a million other tiny little things that you've never been able to explain, you know, deep down I'm not crazy."

Joshua doesn't say anything but his breathing evens out.

"It was wrong of me, to just spring it on you like that," Chloe admits brushing hair out of her face. "But you need to know the truth."

"Why?" Joshua asks.

"I know right now that being in dark seems like a much better option but it's not, trust me," Chloe says. "And I promise you that I will tell you everything, absolutely everything and I don't promise anyone anything anymore, but right now we have got to get out of here."

"Yeah OK." Joshua nods giving in, because honestly he has nowhere else to go and she's right, deep down inside he knows she's not crazy, he'd just really rather it if she were.

Chloe slides her hand in his and checks one more time around the corner. "When I say go, we run OK. We run as fast as we can to the stairs and we don't stop running until we're outside do you understand?" Joshua nods and then squeezes her hand for good measure. "OK, now." Chloe launches herself to her feet, dragging Joshua along with her. They slide into the hallway and it only takes a second before Chloe can hear two new sets of foot falls slamming on the ground behind them.

They burst through the doors into the stairwell and Chloe pulls Joshua behind her, taking the steps two at a time, jumping the bottom four all together and slamming into the emergency exit door, depositing them out on the street. She lets go of Joshua's hand for a second and moves down the alleyway, pushing the half empty dumpster in front of the door, securing it in place.

"It won't last long," she pants out, grabbing Joshua's hand again and pulling him around to the front of the building. There are bodies laying all over the place, some of them her own men. "There's two right behind me. I blocked the emergency exit but they'll find another way out." The remaining hunters nod and head back into the hospital to seek out the stragglers.

"Mason?" Chloe asks looking down at a face she recognizes.

"Didn't have a chance," Victor says sadly. "The bitch just snuck up on him." She looks to the other hunter whose name she never even knew and feels a pang in her chest. "Reese," Victor helps her out. "He got too close, got himself infected. We had too."

"It's okay." Chloe sucks in a deep breath, leaning against the side of the Jeep. She hears the sound of gunshots from inside the hospital and breathes out. She counts the bodies and lifts her head up. "How many where there?" Chloe asks suddenly and everyone turns to look at her.

"What?" Dean asks.

"Whoever called it in, said ten to twelve. That was two inside; I count nine out here, that's only eleven. Was it eleven or was it twelve."

"I don't know." Rivera steps forward.

"You can't count that high?" Chloe snaps at him annoyed.

"I didn't have a clear view," he says, defending himself.

"It was twelve," Jo says softly.

"What?" Chloe turns to her.

"It was twelve," she repeats before taking off toward the doors to the hospital. Chloe looks and sees the two hunters heading toward them. Then she sees the crazy, obviously infected woman slip out from her hiding place behind the large column. Jo's still too far away to stop her from sliding whatever's in her hand into the throat of the first man. His body slumps lifeless to the ground as the second man reaches for his gun. He's too slow though and she slides the weapon into his gut with a maniac laugh.

Jo gets there just a second too late and grabs the woman's collar, pulling her backward, away from the bodies and moving to take the now dead hunters place. It takes less than a second to realize her mistake. The girl stares at her, as if studying her, in confusion. Then she moves, almost lightening fast, or maybe it just seems lightening fast because Jo's watching the whole thing unfold in slow motion.

She feels almost completely detached from the situation as the girl swings her arm around in an arch. Jo sees the glint of the makeshift weapon in the girl's hand, likely a piece of broken glass or twisted metal, right before the pain hits her. It starts at the top of her right shoulder, slicing across her chest and it only stops with the sound of gunshots. Two of them, one right after the other and the girl jerks, the weapon falling from her grasp as she collapses to the ground dead.

Jo stumbles back, partly from shock, partly from the force of the attack that had happened only seconds before. Her knees give out, sending her crashing to the cold asphalt of the street, in a very undignified heap. Sam lowers his gun and moves to help her up but Dean reaches out and grabs Sam's wrist before he can take a step.

"Don't," he says, and in his eyes Jo sees a heartbreaking sorrow and it's directed at her. "Don't touch her," Dean adds in a whisper.

By this time everyone has gathered around and they're all looking at her like it's the last time they'll see her. She wants to tell them that the cut's not that bad. She wants to tell them that it barely even hurts, but she swallows her words as Sam's eyes tear up.

"I'm sorry…I didn't know."

He looks away from her face to her chest and Jo would make a comment about this not being the time to turn into a perv but she doesn't. She follows his gaze and sees what he sees, what Dean saw, what everyone else sees and closes her eyes.

There's a slash in the fabric of her white shirt, her blood soaking into the jagged edges and dying the fabric a dark crimson. The shirt is a throw away, she has a hundred others like it back at the camp and she was right before, the cuts not that bad, probably not life threatening if she can stop the bleeding quick enough. Sure without the access to a plastic surgeon it'll probably scar but you can't really be that vain these days.

The problem as she sees it, as everyone sees is it, is the blood that's not hers, the blood that's splattered in a poor imitation of a Jackson Pollock _on top_ of her blood, _mixing_ with her blood, the blood of the girl that Sam shot. "Fuck." Jo breaths out and collapses all the way to the ground, slamming her head against the asphalt.

Jo's breath is coming in quick short gasps and her heart beat is so deafening in her ears it drowns out everything else around her, everything except Chloe's voice in her head. She's repeating the same thing over and over again. "_Do not engage a Croat in hand to hand combat_". It's practically her mantra, she never misses an opportunity to drill it into all of them, constantly, so often in fact it's a running joke behind her back, their go-to imitation, one that Jo would never admit to Chloe's face.

Everyone knew that it was suicide; you hang back, shoot first, arms length radius at all times. It only takes a cut the size of a pin prick that you probably don't even know you have to get infected; a hangnail will do the trick. Croats were always walking around covered in blood, blood of their victims, blood of other Croats, blood of their own and if you touched it, if you breathed it or swallowed it, just one single drop, you were screwed.

So theoretically, a violent arterial spray dumped into a gaping open wound and you were guaranteed fucked. You were lucky if another Hunter took pity on you and ended your soon to be miserable existence right then and there, before you had a chance to turn, before you had a chance to become the monster that you used to hunt.

They were mercy killings; everyone knew that, Jo knew that, she'd had to commit her own fair share in the past few months. She'd had to close her eyes and put a bullet in members of her own team, friends who were begging her to spare them the insanity that the virus brings, or worse the chance that they might turn into a weapon for the other side.

"I'm so sorry." Sam is mumbling over and over again and Jo wants to tell him that she doesn't blame him, that it was her fault, she didn't follow the rules, she should have followed the rules but she's afraid if she opens her mouth, if she tries to speak, she'll cry and she's damned if she's gonna go out like a little bitch.

She wonders who will do it, who will kill her. She doesn't want Sam to do it, he blames himself enough already and they can't handle a whiney guilty Sam right now, they need him. She thinks Dean might be able to but for some reason she doesn't like the idea of him being the one that kills her.

Chloe can do it, Jo thinks. Chloe should do it. She's their leader, she's their General and they're her responsibility, for better or worse. The more she thinks about it, the more she likes the idea of Chloe being the one to put her out of her misery, to teach her this one last lesson.

"Gauze." Chloe's actual voice brakes through the haze of her own thoughts and Jo lifts her head up confused. Chloe pushes a button on her watch then holds out her hand out to Rivera who is carrying all the emergency medical supplies and who's looking at her like she's just asked for champagne and caviar. "Give me the fucking gauze, Rivera," Chloe snaps again but still he doesn't move.

Joshua suddenly moves into action, taking two steps to Rivera and ripping the bag off his shoulder. He walks over to Jo, kneels on the ground and dumps the bag out onto the pavement.

"What can I do?" Chloe asks from Jo's other shoulder.

"Hold this onto the wound. We need to stop the bleeding." Joshua hands her the gauze and Chloe hastily unrolls it pressing it to the wound on Jo's chest, grabbing Jo's hand to replace her own and hold it in place as she moves on to another section and puts more gauze there. Chloe looks over at Joshua and wants to tell him to stop, wants to tell him to move back with the others, that it might not be safe for him, they don't know enough yet but she can't bring herself to say the words because it's Jo. So she says nothing, she does whatever he tells her to do and as she watches him work she thinks that even if she had told him to stop he probably wouldn't have listened.

Everyone else is frozen, they're standing a good five-feet away in a sort of semi-circle around Jo, watching as Chloe and Joshua apply what they deem rather useless first aid. Jo wants to tell them to back off, not to be stupid but the cut must have been worse than she thought because she's really light headed and the only word her mouth seems to be able to form is a very week, "Stupid."

Chloe breaks her intense concentration on patching up the wound and looks into Jo's face before her jaw clenches and she nods. "You're right, that was stupid." Chloe turns back to the gauze. "So incredibly fucking stupid that if you live through this, I might consider killing you myself."

Jo offers her a smile because she knows one way or another, whether from blood loss or a bullet, she won't be living through this.

"Tape," Joshua says passing it to Chloe to hold, while he pulls off a long piece and tears it with his teeth before sticking it on top of the mountains of gauze they used to stop the bleeding. An entire roll of tape later, Jo wants to tell them it's the most piss poor patch up job she's ever seen but Chloe is pulling her to her feet and that just brings another wave of dizziness over her.

"Stay back," Chloe warns everyone but they don't need to be told. For every step that Jo, Joshua, and Chloe take toward them, they take a step back. "Back of the Jeep." Chloe nods toward one of the vehicles and then gently shoves Jo in that general direction. "Get in," she reiterates and Jo glares at her to say she knows that's what Chloe meant.

Chloe turns that command onto everyone else with an icy glare. "Everyone in the Jeeps now," she snaps and they all scurry to obey her, giving Jo as wide a berth as they possibly can.

"What are you doing?" Dean grabs Chloe's arm and Jo pauses because she wants to know the answer to that question too.

"I'm taking her back to camp." Chloe grinds her teeth in frustration.

"She's infected." Dean tells Chloe, which seems ridiculous, stating the obvious like that. Everyone would have worked that out for themselves by now, Jo had so surely Chloe had as well. "You should shoot her now, it's better that way, safer that way," Dean argues.

Jo flinches, she knows he's right but it still sounds harsh. Chloe tears her arm away from Dean. "Joshua and I are the only ones who have touched her. He's probably immune and I'm…I'll be fine. Look, we'll ride in the back of the Jeep. I've minimized the threat to everyone else."

"Minimized the threat?" Dean scoffs. "Minimizing the threat would be to shoot her, burn her body and leave it here, not load her into the Jeep and bring her back to the camp where she has the possibility of infecting everyone else."

Jo takes a step away from the Jeep, because he's right. She's been following Chloe's orders because she'd gotten so used to doing that. Chloe said something, Jo obeyed, but this is wrong, this is dangerous. This is putting everyone she loves in danger and she isn't going to let that happen.

"Don't move." Chloe says to Jo without turning around, realizing that Jo's been listening to everything and for the first time is disobeying her orders. Chloe looks down at her watch then back up at Dean. "I've got two hours and forty three minutes before the virus kicks in and there's no more hope."

"There's no hope now," Dean argues with her. "What do you expect to happen in two hours and forty three minutes?"

"A miracle," Chloe says and Dean just looks at her like she's completely lost it. "It's Christmas, right? If ever there was a time for a miracle, I'd say today's the day." She turns around and jumps into the back of the Jeep next to Joshua. "Sit down," she scolds Jo softly, keeping her gaze from Dean who is staring at her in disbelief.

Jo turns to Dean, unsure what to do and he just nods at her before climbing into the driver's side and starting it up. Jo sits and breaths out. If Dean trusts Chloe then she trusts Chloe.

The closer they get to camp, the closer they get to her mom, Jo's doubts intensify, and she starts second guessing Chloe's decision. "This is pointless." Jo argues with her but Chloe refuses to listen. Joshua is steadfastly staying out of it as he does his best to sew up her wound which isn't exactly easy seeing as Jeeps aren't really known for having the steadiest ride. He'd wanted to wait until they got back on solid ground but Chloe said there wasn't time.

"We'll need to hose off, all of us, first thing, get rid of any blood whether it's hers or someone else's," Chloe says to Joshua though she's really talking to herself.

"I don't want my mom to see me like this," Jo says louder.

"We'll need to burn our clothes and probably ditch the Jeep, we could clean it but I don't want to take any chances." Chloe looks around at the piles of bloody gauze and the smears of blood on every surface.

"I don't want her to have to watch me go crazy or die, or go crazy and die," Jo pleads. Chloe studiously ignores her and Jo smacks the bed of the Jeep between them, causing Chloe to finally give her some attention. "Do you even get that?" Jo narrows her eyes glaring. "Can you even imagine how that would make her feel?" When Chloe doesn't answer Jo gets even angrier. "Do you even know how to feel anymore?"

"You're not going to go crazy or die," Chloe says after a minute then goes back to ignoring her, watching Joshua place another stitch in her wound. "You'll have a wicked scar but you're not going to die."

They pull through the gates of the camp and Jo starts to beg, "Just do it. Kill me. Kill me now, before I turn into a monster." Chloe simply shakes her head and Jo jumps to her feet while the car is still moving. Joshua's almost done only two or three more stitches to go but the sudden movement snaps his suture string in half. "I'll run, I swear to God I'll run."

"You can try." Chloe stands up as Dean slows the Jeep to a stop and this is what it's come down to as they square off. Jo knows there's no way she can take Chloe, she's injured, she's lost a lot of blood and she's tired, but she's got pure adrenaline pumping through her veins, an anxious sort of energy that's got her humming in her own skin and an all encompassing desire to get as far away from them as possible. Chloe raises her eyebrows, practically daring Jo to run and she does it, jumping from the back of the Jeep and taking off.

But her reaction times are slow and her landing is clumsy, costing her precious seconds, seconds that Chloe uses to her advantage, jumping after Jo and grabbing her by the back of the collar. Jo spares a brief second of amusement because it's that same move she used on the Croat girl that got her into this mess. Chloe pulls her back, slamming her body into the ground and Jo gasps as all of the air is shoved out of her lungs.

Jo doesn't waste any time, pulling herself to her feet and pulling her .45 from her waist band. "Just shoot me," she pleads, flicking off the safety and presenting Chloe with the gun. "Please." Chloe takes the gun from her, curling her fingers around the handle.

"You really want me to shoot you?" Chloe asks her, sliding her finger onto the trigger and raising the weapon.

"Yes," Jo begs and falls to her knees, exhaustion catching up to her. "Just kill me now."

"What's going on?" Ellen calls out to them. Chloe turns to see that half the camp has gathered around them now, Ellen front and center. "Chloe?" Ellen turns her gaze from her daughter to her daughter's would be murderer, or savior depending on how you looked at the situation.

"I'm infected. I got infected," Jo explains when Chloe says nothing, her eyes pleading with her mother to understand and Ellen gasps and takes a step back. "It was my fault. I didn't follow the rules, I didn't…it was my fault," she says, this time to Sam.

"Chloe?" Ellen turns to Chloe, her voice broken and begging and Jo's not sure if she's begging for Chloe to shoot her or begging for Chloe to spare her.

"I could shoot you now," Chloe says. "If that's what you really want. But I don't think you do. You're not a quitter Jo and if I shoot you now that's what you'd be doing, quitting." Jo lets out a sob. "I know it's hard, this past month hasn't really been a picnic for anyone and you lost someone very close to you and I know this feels like an easy out but it's not." Jo cuts her gaze to her mom whose holding Lucas tightly up against her, the both of them staring at her, pleading with her.

"I'm not going to shoot you," Chloe says decidedly, re-engaging the safety and sliding the gun in her waistband in one fluid movement. "Yet. Just give me another two hours and fifteen minutes, Sidekick, that's all I ask."

"Why wait?" Jo asks pulling herself to her feet. "Why make me suffer?" She heard Dean and Chloe arguing about a similar time frame before, was it some kind of countdown? What can possibly change if they wait?

"Because." Chloe swallows. "We might have a cure."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"You could have led with that," Dean points out ten minutes later, as he secures four sets of handcuffs to one of the beds in the Medical Bay. "I mean that's kind of an important revelation don't you think."

"I wasn't sure." Chloe shakes her head, wet hair falling into her face as she pulls a chair over next to the bed.

"Weren't sure you had a cure?" Dean asks. "Or weren't sure you wanted any of us to know?"

"A little of both," Chloe admits to him.

"You didn't want us to know?" Dean asks staring at her incredulous.

"It's not exactly proof positive yet. And until I can be sure it works, I didn't want you guys thinking you had a free pass around Croats. If you knew there was a cure you'd be more reckless," Chloe argues.

"You don't know that." Dean shakes his head.

"I do," she tells him.

It's her expression more than her words that remind Dean of a fight between Chloe and Oliver from almost two years ago. _"Who cares about being careful on missions when you've got your very own get out of death free card?"_ She does know because she lived it. Even if they didn't do it on purpose, even if they didn't realize, Dean was willing to bet that her team pushed themselves a little bit further, pushed the envelope a little bit more than they normally would have because they knew if anything happened Chloe could heal them, Chloe could fix it. Who was scared of death when they had someone who could bring them back to life?

"Right." Dean sighs.

"So then this isn't tested?" Jo asks, leaning up against the door jamb. Her hair is wet like Chloe's and she's changed into fresh clothes.

"Not on living subjects," Chloe says and Dean turns to her his eyebrows raised.

"We've only tried it on blood samples from some of the infected. It cleans the virus from the blood, leaves no trace as long as it's administered before the three hour incubation is up. After that you're still screwed," Chloe says.

"Which is why you started your watch." Dean nods understanding.

"How do we know it'll work on a live person?" Jo pushes herself forward.

"We don't." Chloe grabs one of handcuffs and shows it to Jo. "Which is why you will be chained to the bed."

"Kinky." Jo smiles at them.

"And if it doesn't work?" Dean asks Chloe and she pulls the .45 out of her waist band. He nods and steps to the door, locking them in.

It's just Jo and Dean and Chloe now, even the ever present Kandorian guards at the back of the room have scattered for the moment, letting them do this in peace. "Did you say goodbye to your mom?" Chloe asks as Jo climbs into the bed and Chloe secures her with the handcuffs. "Just in case."

"There were tears, but no hug, just to be on the safe side." Jo nods. "So how do we know this miracle cure won't kill me?"

"We don't," Chloe says with a shrug. "But it's your only hope isn't it?"

"Not instilling a lot of confidence here." Jo laughs. "Why now?" Jo asks her. "Why test it now, why test it on me if you're not ready?"

"Because I have to do something." Chloe looks up at her. "Because I'm not losing one more person in this camp if I can help it," she says truthfully then turns away. "Because I'm pretty sure this whole place will go to hell in a hand basket if you're not standing beside me holding that stupid clipboard," Chloe jokes to relieve the tension.

"So what is this miracle cure anyway?" Jo asks her.

"It's slightly embarrassing actually. Emil's a little pissed that it took him this long to figure out. It's just a saline solution." Chloe pulls the syringe out of her pocket.

"Salt water?" Jo looks at her dubiously.

"Holy salt water," Chloe corrects her and Jo nods as if the "Holy" part makes it somehow better that Chloe is touting a miracle cure out of table salt. "And we used Kosher salt, you know, just to hedge our bets." She smirks as if she read Jo's mind and the two of them laugh at the absurdity of it all. "We've found that the infected had deposits of sulfur attached to their blood cells. The salt mixed with the holy water acts as a sort of cleanser, cleaning the sulfur from your blood stream before it has a chance to attach itself."

"Now with scrubbing bubbles," Dean deadpans.

Chloe snorts a laugh, readying the syringe. "Once it's attached, there's nothing we can do but if we catch it before, we might have a chance. This might sting a bit," Chloe says.

"They always say that," Jo offers as the needle pierces her skin. "It never does."

Chloe shrugs and pushes the plunger down, injecting the entire syringe into her arm. The scream can be heard across the entire camp, it's blood curdling and Chloe wishes she'd brought earplugs, but she hadn't really anticipated that. Steam is rising out of Jo, seeping out of her pores, out of her eyes, her ears, wherever it can escape as the salt water literally burns the virus out of her blood stream.

The scream is suddenly cut off because Jo has no more breath to scream with and because she's pretty sure her heart stopped for just a second from the sheer pain of everything. "You okay?" Chloe asks sitting back down in her chair.

"I'm on fire," Jo hisses.

"That probably means it's working," Chloe points out and Jo really wishes she had full use of her hands because she'd love nothing more than to give Chloe the finger.

The pain doesn't stop, it never stops but it seems to even out, reach a sort of plateau and just when Jo thinks she can take a deep breath, the solution makes its way into her heart and she doesn't have a chance to scream because it really does stop this time.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Jo opens her eyes to find Chloe and Dean hovering over her. "What happened?" she pants out, looking around the room as Chloe replaces what she's sure are defibrillator paddles onto a cart next to the bed.

"You died," Chloe says.

"Right." Jo shakes her head. "What?"

"When the salt water got to your heart and it started to burn away the virus there, the shock was too much for you and your heart stopped," Chloe explains sitting back in her chair. "I had to do CPR and use the paddles, but I got it started again."

"So that's it, I'm done?" Jo asks her breathing slowly returning to normal. Her chest still burns like the most vile case of heart burn she's ever had in her life but at least she's breathing.

"No, now we wait." Chloe checks her watch. "One hour and fifteen minutes…an hour and a half just to be safe and then we check your blood. If it's clean you're free to go, if it's not..." She pulls the gun out of her pants and rests it on her knee.

"Right. Okay." Jo nods. "What are we going to do for an hour and a half?"

"I brought a book." Chloe smiles.

Dean holds up a deck of cards and Jo looks down at were her hands are cuffed to the bed. "You can watch me play solitaire." He offers and now she really wants to give him the finger.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

An hour and half later a test of Jo's blood contains no traces of the virus. Emil wants to keep her in the Medical Bay for another day for observation just in case but she gets the handcuffs removed. Chloe excuses herself to go give Ellen and Lucas the good news and finds herself smiling a genuine smile. She feels for the first time in a very long time that they're making some progress that they've finally got something good for their side.

"Oracle," she calls out when she makes it back into her cabin. "Send a message out to anyone who's willing to listen. We've got a cure," she announces. The people hanging around in the Situation Room erupt into cheers, it's the first good news they've had in a really long time. "It only works if administered within the three hour incubation period but it does work. It's painful and there's a chance of heart failure but-"

"It's a cure." Oliver smiles at her.

"Yeah." Chloe nods. "It is. Can you get the President on the line? I'd like to deliver this news to her myself," she says to Archer who nods and steps aside acquiescing to her.

"This calls for a celebration," Lois says, jumping up and hugging her cousin. "I'm gonna see what we have in the pantry."

"Don't go crazy," Chloe pleads with her.

"Are you kidding? It's Christmas, we've got a cure, and we have so little to celebrate these days." Lois laughs and heads for the door only stop when she sees Dean standing there, looking decidedly not in a party mood.

"I think I'd hold off on the fireworks just yet," Dean says, staring straight at Chloe.

"What's wrong?" Chloe asks. "Is Jo..."

"She's fine." Dean brushes off Chloe's concern. "I was talking to Emil, wanted to make sure that there would be no lasting damage from the heart failure and he let something…interesting slip."

"Guys, can I have the room?" Chloe freezes, swallowing hard. Everyone slowly slips out of the cabin except for Lois and Oliver. "Lois, Oliver, can you excuse us for a minute?"

"No, maybe Lois and Oliver should stay," Dean says his gaze never once wavering from Chloe's face.

"I don't think I want to," Lois says slowly looking between the two of them. "Do I Chloe?"

"No." Chloe shakes her head, not looking at her cousin. "No you don't," she reiterates.

"Then I'll go." Lois lays a hand on Chloe's arm before turning and walking away. Dean looks over at Oliver.

"I think I'll stay." Oliver walks over and takes a seat.

"When I asked him if Jo would be alright, if there was any damage to her heart you know what he said?"

"Dean." Chloe whispers, pleading with him to drop it.

"He said that none of the other subjects suffered any ill effects." Dean answers. "And that confused me because you said it hadn't been tested on any living subjects before, so how could there have been side effects? I mean if it really was only tested on blood samples.

"Dean," Chloe says more forcefully this time.

"Then I remembered—you had the crash cart set up before Jo even got there, you knew you would need it." Chloe didn't say anything, she couldn't. "You lied to me," Dean snaps at her.

"I wanted to tell you," Chloe tries to explain but he cuts her off.

"He wanted to take it back as soon as he realized what he'd let slip but it was too late. It didn't take much to get the rest out of him." Dean says, his anger barely controlled. "That room at the back of the lab. The secret room that's guarded by Kandorians, the room you don't let anyone into because you said it had very sensitive test samples in it."

"It does," Chloe says. "Technically."

"It has bodies," Dean yells at her. "Live human bodies, that you and your little mad scientist do experiments on."

"Croats," Chloe corrects him. "Live human, _infected_ bodies and yes, we do tests on them. It's how we found the cure."

"Yeah. It's also how you found out that it only works if administered during the incubation period. You gave them the cure and it did exactly what it did to Jo, right. It tried to cleanse the sulfur from their systems but it was too late. Eventually their hearts stopped and they died, but you brought them back and you did it all over again, just to be sure."

"We had to know what kind of effect it was having on the virus," Chloe protests.

"I saw Jo. She was in excruciating pain. How could you do that to another human being?"

"They're not human," Chloe screams suddenly infuriated. "Not anymore and you know that. Besides, what was I supposed to do Dean? I had to do something; we're losing more and more people every day to this stupid virus, how many people, how many friends have we had to kill ourselves just so they don't end up as one of them?" Chloe asks, remembering Reese, lying on the pavement dead, her heart twisting knowing now that she could have saved him too but she'd been too late.

"That's not an excuse," Dean argues.

"I had no other options," Chloe says. "At first we just took them for blood and tissue samples but when we stumbled upon what we thought might be a cure we had to try it on someone. A few Kandorian's volunteered to test it but even when we finally managed to introduce the virus into their blood stream it just sat there dormant, their physiology was just too different. There was no way to know if the cure worked because there was technically no infection."

"They volunteered?" Dean sneers at her. "Why do I have a feeling that means Zod ordered them to volunteer?"

Chloe ignores the dig and presses on. "So when that didn't work _I_ was going to test it." Dean and Oliver both turn to her at this admission. "I injected myself with a sample of the virus but…"

"You injected yourself?" Oliver asks her.

"Many many times." Chloe laughs humorlessly. "But it didn't work, it never worked. It went through my body and it latched onto my blood cells but before we could administer the cure, my body had healed itself, like it does with all other wounds. We tried to do something with the antibodies it produced but they were never viable outside of my body, they didn't last long enough to be of much help so we used the resources that were available to us and it worked."

"The Croats?" Dean asks and she nods. "And the ends justify the means? You really believe that?"

"When it means that I get to tell Ellen that her daughter is alive and well instead of having to throw her body on a burn pile after putting a bullet through her skull then yes, the ends justify the means," Chloe tells him defiantly.

"You're torturing them," Dean snaps at her.

"Well you would know, you are after all the expert on that aren't you?" Chloe says before she can stop herself. The atmosphere is instantly thicker and even Oliver stops breathing for a second. She doesn't back down though, even while Dean stares at her with contempt in his eyes.

"Yes, I suppose I am," Dean agrees, his breath coming faster and faster.

"Chloe, I have the President on the line," Oracle says hesitantly.

"You should take that," Dean says stiffly before turning on his heel and storming out of the cabin, slamming the door behind him for good measure.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe's practically on the verge of breaking down. She barely made it through the call with the President who couldn't understand why Chloe was so morose as she delivered such wonderful news. She knows by this time tomorrow practically everyone will know about the cure, she knows that's a huge victory for their side but she can't seem to bring herself to care. All she can remember is the loathing in Dean's eyes as he stared her down.

She knew it would be bad when he found out but it shouldn't have been that bad. They should have been able to talk about it like rational adults but she'd gotten so angry and she couldn't stop herself. She realized halfway through the argument that part of her anger at him wasn't even about the Croats or the testing or any of that, part of it was about her dream. She was still furious about his appearance in a dream, a dream Dean had no control over much less knowledge of. She'd been angry at him all day without even realizing it and it was eating away at her and when he attacked her about the Croats it gave her an excuse, an excuse to let out all that anger right back onto him.

He didn't put himself in the dream, Chloe did, or rather her subconscious, either way it wasn't his fault. Chloe isn't even really mad at him. She's mad at herself, furious at herself for allowing Dean to dig himself so deeply into her life that he's invading her dreams. And she knows, without a doubt that this twisting awful pain in her chest is stone cold terror that he won't forgive her for the things she's done and the things she's said.

Chloe stares at the door to Sam's cabin. She really doesn't want to have this conversation, not tonight, not now but she promised Joshua, so she takes a deep breath and tells herself she can curl up in a ball on her bed and break down later in the privacy of her own cabin, but now she's got work to do.

When she opens the door, Sam who had been sitting on the edge of his bed bolts upright, standing almost at attention. "I take it from the sounds of celebration out there it worked?"

"She's fine." Chloe offers him a weak, tired smile. "You can go see her if you like," Chloe says but Sam understands it's not really a suggestion; it's more like a request. He looks over at Joshua, sitting on the dirty cabin floor. He's got his back against the edge of his mattress, his legs pulled up to his chest and his head resting against his knees. He's been like that for hours, ever since they got back.

"Yeah, sure." Sam nods, sliding his hands in his pockets as he walks out the door.

Chloe waits until she can't hear Sam's footfalls anymore then moves over to the edge of Joshua's bed. She looks down at him, but he makes no indication that he even knows she's there so she slides down to the floor next to him, leaning against the mattress, bumping his shoulder slightly with her own.

She doesn't say anything and he doesn't say anything, they sit there the two of them, the conversation they're not having weighing heavy in the air around them. Out of the corner of her eyes she sees Joshua's bag, the one containing all his worldly possession lying on the floor forgotten, peaking out of the top is the corner of a white slip of paper. Before she can stop herself or think about the fact that whatever it is, it's none of her business she's pulled the paper out and is staring at it. A small smile twists up the corner of her mouth.

It's a picture, a rough charcoal drawing of Joshua, only it's not Joshua as he's sitting next to her now, but dressed up like a medieval knight, head to toe in armor that somehow, through the charcoal medium looks as if it's glinting in the sunlight. "What's this?" she asks him.

Joshua turns to her and looks at the piece of paper in her hands. "My girlfriend, Beth, she was an artist." Joshua smiles at the memory. "This was the first thing she ever gave to me."

"It's good," Chloe assures him. "It's really good." She passes the picture back over.

"When I had to leave school, I wasn't sure what to do exactly; I sort of just wandered around the city aimlessly, looking for a job. Had to pay the rent. But every day I would walk the same way, there's a fountain, or there was a fountain, in Russell Square and I'd always see this ridiculously beautiful girl on the same bench. She never saw me of course because her head was always buried in a sketch book. But one day I get to the fountain and she's not on the bench. Some kids had swiped her sketchpad and were holding it over the fountain, threatening to drop it in. I didn't think I just ran over and grabbed it off them before they had a chance to react, told them to get lost." Joshua sighs and leans his head back against the mattress. "She called me her knight in shining armor, gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and I was just struck dumb," Joshua admits.

_Joshua stares at the tall slender brunette, his cheek still warm from where she'd kissed him. He was sure there was a stupid smile plastered on his face. "I'm Beth by the way." She holds out her hand and the sketchpad falls from her grip heading straight for the water. _

_Joshua reaches out and grabs it before it falls. "Joshua," he says stupidly, introducing himself and passing the pad back over. _

_"You've saved me twice," she tells him. "My life is in this book, all of my sketches, I'd be lost without it." He blushes this time like a bloody teenager and she smiles even bigger. "I've seen you around here before," she says. _

_"It's on my way home." Joshua shrugs, the lie comes easy; he can't very well say he comes by to see her that would come off more than a bit stalker-ish. _

_"You have to let me repay you," Beth says laying a hand on his arm. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee?" _

_"Not much of a coffee drinker," Joshua admits._

_"How about a cup of tea then?" Beth asks, biting her lip. _

_Joshua nods finding himself unable to say no to her. "Yeah okay." _

_"I've got to run now but tomorrow, same time, the little shop at the corner of the park?" she asks checking her watch._

_"Brilliant." Joshua smiles and this time she blushes before rushing off._

"I almost didn't show up," Joshua admits. "I was sure she'd forget and then I'd feel like an idiot but something made me go and she was there and we had many cups of tea and talked for hours."

_"Here." Beth shoves a crisp white piece of paper in front of Joshua before she has a chance to stop herself. "I did it last night, almost didn't give it to you, I thought you might think it was stupid." He looks down at the charcoal sketch of him standing in front of the fountain in a suit of armor and smiles._

_"No," Joshua assures her. "I think it's brilliant." He smiles. "It's just…"_

_"What?" Beth bites her lip nervously._

_"I mean this looks exactly like the suit of armor in my closet at home." Joshua looks up at her. "How did you know? Have you been spying on me?"_

_"Of course not." Beth giggles. "I must have just seen you around town in it or something." _

_"I don't think so, I only wear it when I'm home alone watching X-Factor, or you know when I'm out fighting crime," Joshua says._

_"Must have been during the crime fighting then." Beth nods. "You really like it?" _

_"I love it," Joshua says, reaching across the table to grab her hand. _

"This is all I have left of her," Joshua tells Chloe sadly, smoothing out the wrinkles in the paper.

"What happened to her?" Chloe asks him.

"It was the first day of the outbreak. Everything was going crazy, my boss had attacked me earlier with a letter opener and I'd rushed home to get her. I thought we could head to her mums house out in the country until it all died down but it was too late. When I got to her she'd already been infected."

"Did you…I mean did you have to…" Chloe can't ask him, it's too personal.

"No." Joshua shakes his head. "No. I didn't know what to do; we didn't know at that point even what it was or if there was a cure or anything but I knew that she was sick, so I locked her in the bathroom. She got out somehow, I can't even remember. Maybe she broke the lock, maybe I opened the door... I don't know but she had this crazy look in her eyes and she was holding a piece of the broken mirror. I could see it cutting into her, there was blood dripping all down her arm but she kept saying it was okay, it would be okay and if I just gave her my arm we could be together forever."

_"You're something special you know." Beth tilts her head at him and Joshua has no idea how he got here. He's pushed himself as far into the corner of the room as he can and she's there, right there in front of him. The blood is dripping onto the ugly brown carpet they swore ages ago they would replace and never got around to. "I always suspected you were different but I didn't know how much. I mean I can see it, literally see it, or rather not see it. You're just…not there anymore. Before I could see you but now I can't." She frowns at this. "Why can't I see you Joshua?"_

_"I don't know Beth," Joshua whispers. "Because you're sick." _

_"I'm not sick." She shakes her head. "I'm fine. I'm better than fine, I feel stronger and faster and more alive, and I want you to feel that way too." She reaches out with her free hand and grabs his wrist. "Just a scratch. All it takes, one tiny little scratch and we'll both be fine." _

_Joshua nods, the touch of her fingertips on his wrist so familiar it overrides all of his senses. He should push her away, he should tell her no, but he can't. He could never tell her no. "Okay," he whispers. _

_She smiles and he closes his eyes preparing for the pain when he hears two gunshots, one right after the other. Her grip on his wrist loosens then disappears all together and he opens his eyes to see her face twisted in pain, two red spots blooming rapidly on her chest before she falls to the ground dead. _

_Joshua stares, slightly in shock. PC Davidson, from earlier at the book shop is standing in his bedroom doorway, his gun aimed at the place where Beth had been. "I'm sorry," he whispers lowering his gun. "I had to." _

_Joshua nods, because he knows the man's telling the truth but it doesn't make it any less painful. "What are you doing here?" he manages to croak out somehow. _

_"I got home and my wife and kids were…I didn't know what to do or where to go, the whole city's gone mad. Then I remembered your address from the statement you gave earlier. You seemed like a good lad so I thought I'd come by, make sure you got out okay. When I saw her with the glass I didn't think I just…was she…"_

"My girlfriend," Joshua says numbly. "She was my girlfriend." 

_"I'm really sorry." Davidson collapses against the wall. "Look, you gotta get out of here. It's not safe." Joshua doesn't move just stares down at Beth's body. "You can't help her now but you can help yourself," Davidson tells him. "Just go. Away from here. Away from all of this." They hear screams from somewhere and Davidson sighs. "I've got to go, help where I can just promise me you'll get out." _

_"Promise," Joshua whispers. He sees his half packed back bag on the bed and reaches out for the handle. He grabs it with shaky hands, only then noticing that he's got Beth's blood all over him. He steps over her body and heads for the bathroom. There's pieces of the broken mirror all over the place but he grabs a towel from the cupboard and wets it, wiping his face, neck and hands as best as he can before he drops the towel suddenly and throws up violently into the sink. _

_He grabs some more clothes and stuffs them in the bag, zipping it quickly and heads for the door. He pauses when he sees the charcoal drawing, the first one Beth ever drew for him, framed and hung on the wall in the entry way. He tears it off the hook and throws it to the ground, shattering the glass so he can remove the paper from the frame before stuffing it in his pocket and leaving the flat for the last time. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

After a few minutes of silence he turns and looks at Chloe. "What makes you think... I mean what exactly leads you to believe that I'm…"

"God?" Chloe finishes for him. "You can say it you know, in some circles it's not considered a dirty word." Joshua doesn't look convinced. "It helps if you say it out loud, it sounds lame but it actually does."

"OK." Joshua takes a deep breath. "What makes you think that I'm God?" Chloe smiles in encouragement at his lack of hesitation this time.

"First of all you're not God," Chloe tells him and he glares at her. "Not God in the way you think of God. Have you ever seen that movie where God switches lives with Jim Carey and suddenly he's God and he's got all these powers and he can make his dog pee in the toilet and walk on water and all that good stuff?"

"Yeah?" Joshua perks up a bit.

"This is nothing like that," Chloe assures him.

"Right, thanks for that then." Joshua snorts at her.

"Everything that makes God God has been stripped away, all of his extraordinary powers, all his omniscience, all of his knowledge of what is and what will be, of what came before and what will come after, you have none of that," Chloe tells him.

"Then what do I have? What's even left?" Joshua asks.

"His soul."

"So I've got two souls?" he asks her confused.

"No," she says quietly. "Just the one."

"But if I've only got the one, and it's his…" Chloe bites her lip as Joshua processes this slowly. "What happened to mine?"

"Nothing." Chloe feels her eyes begin to sting and she thinks for a second that she can't do it, she can't completely ruin this boy's life but she promised him she would tell him the truth. "You never had one. It all clicked after something you said to me," Chloe reminds him. "You said that I created you and that's exactly what I did. I created Joshua Moore, I created him well, I mean honestly Joshua is some of my best work. The thing is, if I created Joshua three years ago, who were you before that?"

"I was…" Joshua pauses. "It was so long ago, I don't remember."

"No, that's not right is it," Chloe presses. "I mean yes, you've been Joshua for three years but whoever you were before Joshua, you'd have been him for much longer. Three years doesn't erase those memories."

"I must have…I must have told you then?"

"No." Chloe shakes her head. "And I didn't bother to ask. You can't remember who you were before you became Joshua because you were no one before you became Joshua," Chloe tells him. "You didn't exist, physically or on paper. God created your body to house himself, his soul, and then I created your life."

"That sounds crazy, you know that sounds crazy," Joshua protests weakly.

"Have you ever gotten the feeling your forgetting something?" she asks and Joshua thinks back to all those times that he used to stand there in the doorway of his and Beth's flat staring around the room certain he'd forgotten something. "If you try really hard to think about your past, does it get lost, the memories become a little fuzzy?" Joshua nods, remembering when he'd tried to tell Gwen about his mum but he couldn't because he didn't remember her. "It's because you have no past. You were created the day we met, your body, your memories; all of it is fake, manufactured. Your parents, your childhood, all made up by God because Joshua had to have a past, everyone has a past, most of the time we don't even think about it. Then he used me to give you a future."

"I had a girlfriend, you didn't create her, and you didn't make her up." Joshua shakes his head. "I was real, my life was real. I woke up in the morning and I went to work and I came home to my girlfriend and I kissed her goodnight."

"I know," Chloe whispers.

"It doesn't make any sense. When God comes to earth, _if _God comes to earth, don't you think it would be as someone great? Not a normal guy you drinks too many pints on a Friday night, who plays football in the park with his mates on Sunday afternoons instead of going to church, who lies to his boss every now and then pretending to be sick so he can have a lie in with his girlfriend. I didn't do anything extraordinary; wouldn't God have done something extraordinary?"

"But you did." Chloe smiles. "You lived, and in the end that's all that really matters don't you think?"

They're quiet for a minute, they can hear the sounds of music and laughter drifting through the open windows of the Mess. "I've only been here a day, but there's been talk around Camp... I mean not like they're talking about you or anything but there's talk that you're supposed to do something important, something involving God, involving me, I guess."

"Yeah? Do they say what?" Chloe asks.

"No, actually." Joshua frowns. "They're pretty tight lipped about that part. When I asked Oliver and Sam I think they knew but they didn't want to tell me." Joshua looks at her. "I just can't figure out if they were keeping it from me to protect me or to protect you."

"I think it might be a bit of both." Chloe shrugs. "Do you want to know what I'm supposed to do?" Joshua thinks for a second before nodding. "I'm supposed to kill you." She turns to gauge his reaction to that comment and he doesn't say anything. "Or heal you. They're pretty ambiguous on that actually."

"Those are two rather different actions," Joshua points out to her.

"Which causes me no small amount of confusion I'll tell you." Chloe laughs.

"Do you want to kill me?" Joshua looks over at her.

"I don't want to kill anyone," Chloe admits.

"I mean do you ever think that maybe if you just slipped into my cabin in the middle of the night and slit my throat this whole thing would be over?"

"It wouldn't be over," Chloe assures him, pulling herself to her feet and brushing off her pants. "And I'm not going to kill you, I promise you that."

"You don't make promises," Joshua says allowing her to help him up.

"I'm making this one." Chloe walks to the door. "You should go to the party. Have a little fun."

"You don't even believe in God," Joshua calls out to her. "That's what they say anyway."

"I do believe," Chloe says over her shoulder. "I'm just not sure I care anymore."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe really isn't expecting anyone to be in her cabin by the time she finally manages to drag herself back there. She'd gone to the Medical Bay to check on Jo again. Then she ran into Chuck on her way back who wanted to talk to her again about his misgivings regarding the Kandorians, but seeing that he hasn't as of yet gotten any sort of prophetic evidence against them Chloe brushes him off.

She can hear the rest of the camp still celebrating in the Mess and when she sees the figure sitting at the desk, her heart jumps in her throat and for one second she thinks it's Dean. Then he stands and it's obviously not Dean, he's far too tall. She flips the light switch and frowns in confusion. "Oliver?"

"Hey." He smiles sheepishly at her. "I thought…it's been a rough day…I just thought you might not want to be alone."

Suddenly Chloe knows she's not going to make it to the bed. She's not going to get a chance to curl up in a ball and break down in peace as the tears start to fall. Oliver is in front of her in a second and his arms wrap around her waist just as her knees give out. His chest is solid against her cheek and she clutches to him as her tears soak through his t-shirt.

"Shh," Oliver whispers into her temple, remembering the two of them in this exact same position almost three years prior, only then she was crying over the loss of a different man.

_Oh, you can't always get what you want_

_Oh, you can't always get what you want_

_Oh, you can't always get what you want_

_But if you try sometimes, you just might find_

_You get what you need_

_-The Rolling Stones_


	16. Wild Horses

**Wild Horses**

_I watched you suffer a dull aching pain_

_Now you decided to show me the same_

_No sweeping exits or off stage lines_

_Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind_

**April 31, 2012**

Oliver watches the situation unfolding in front of him with increasing unease. Chloe is screaming, actually screaming at Bart. This strange sort of tension has been building since Christmas and more and more lately it's threatening to snap. When it finally does Oliver has no doubt that the ensuing backlash will take the entire camp down with it. He still doesn't really understand how things went so bad so quickly. One second they were celebrating the fact that they'd finally found a cure of sorts for Croatoan, the next second Chloe and Dean were at each other's throats.

It had all gone downhill from there. The fact that they actually had some way to combat the Croats now meant that they were actually gaining ground on the battlefield, which meant that they were busier than ever. That also meant that Chloe and Dean didn't really have a chance to talk. There was no time to sit and deal with personal stuff, when they were fighting tooth and nail to keep control over every square inch of real-estate they could get their hands on.

For four months now they've barely spoken two words to each other unless it work related and even then a simple conversation tends to turn into a screaming match and that morning had been no exception.

_"Jo, I'm sending Knowles and his men back to New York. He should still be in Nevada. Get in touch with him in the morning and relay the new orders," Chloe tells her. "We've been getting a lot of increased chatter from Atlanta."_

_"Wait a minute, back up to New York." Dean looks up._

_"Vegas in under control now and Grant's still there, he should be able to handle anything that comes up," Chloe reminds him. _

_Dean brushes that off. "No, I just thought we were waiting for more intelligence before we went back in there." _

_"We were waiting for more intelligence but they've had four months and given us nothing, so we're going back in." Chloe turns to Jo to move on. _

_"And in four months has it become any less of a hot zone?" Dean asks. Chloe turns back to Dean, a slight glare marring her face now. _

_"No, but we have the cure now—" Chloe reminds him. _

_"Right, the cure," Dean snaps, mentioning the cure always has a way of pushing Dean's buttons. "Cause getting infected is the only thing to worry about in a hot zone," he says sarcastically. _

_"I'm sending Knowles and his men to New York and if you ever question me like that again, I'll send your ass into the middle of a hot zone," Chloe warns him. _

_"Oh please. You'll be doing me a favor." He stands up, shoving his chair away from the table and storming out the door. _  
_  
"So, Atlanta," Chloe says to Jo, pretending that the sound of the door slamming behind Dean doesn't twist something deep inside of her, something she isn't ready to put her finger on just yet. For her part Jo keeps on with her report, as if the massive blow up was an everyday occurrence, and lately it has been. _

Now a few hours later, Chloe's still pissed and she's taking it out on everyone else. Oliver can handle it, Clark can handle it, even Jo takes it in stride but Bart is having a rough time of it. Sweet loveable Bart who seemed to always be able to put Chloe into a good mood, had never really been on the receiving end of one of her tirades, in fact Oliver is quite certain that until recently Chloe had never even raised her voice in anger at Bart. Even when he did something wrong, she always managed to scold him with a soft gentle tone.

All that had changed. For some reason he'd been receiving the blunt of her bad mood for the past few weeks now and Oliver has a feeling this is going to end very, very badly.

"Would you like me to do it again?" Bart asks her, his teeth clenched, his jaw twitching.

"No, what I'd like is for you to do it right the first time then we wouldn't have to constantly have this same fucking conversation." Chloe snaps at him tossing the file across the table top toward him.

"You know what I'd like?" Bart grabs the file angrily and Oliver stands up in a futile attempt to stop whatever Bart might say next. "I'd like for you and Dean to get the hell over yourselves, deal with whatever is going on between you two so that maybe, possibly you could kindly release my fucking balls."

The entire room goes silent. Oliver doesn't move, he doesn't breathe, he's not sure he can, not sure he can even remember how. Lois and Clark are frozen and with a quick look he sees even Lt. Col. Archer seems to be at a loss for what to do. Chloe is breathing, in and out, very calmly as she stares straight through Bart. He regrets the words the second they leave his mouth. She shouldn't have yelled at him but he definitely shouldn't have said that, especially with everyone else standing there. "You should go now," Chloe says to him very calmly though you can hear the anger shaking underneath her words.

"Chloe I—"

"Bart," Chloe says to him, "God gave you a gift, a very special gift. The gift to run faster than anything or anyone on this planet and I truly believe that he gave you that gift for this particular moment. Right now."

He nods at her and then he's gone, the file's gone with him, a small breeze the only indication that he was even there. "The kid's not wrong you know," Archer says after a minute of silence and everyone turns to him, unable to believe that he just said that. Jo even takes a step to the side, physically distancing herself from him.

"I didn't realize the President was now interested in my personal life," Chloe turns to him slowly.

"She couldn't care less about your personal life…" Archer snorts.

"Then it's no business of yours either, so stay out of it." Chloe walks over to the computer and sits down.

"But it's not just about your personal life anymore when it affects all of us," Archer snaps.

"OK." Oliver jumps in between them and lays a calming hand on Chloe's wrist when it looks like she might use the keyboard as a weapon. "Guys, can I have the room?" Everyone drops what they're doing and walk cautiously to the door.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Sam slams an orange down on the table in front of Dean. "You need more citrus."

Dean looks up at Sam and glares, "Thanks mom, but I'm fine."

"No, you're not." Sam sits down across from him. "But the citrus thing is an order and it comes from higher up than me." Sam motions over his shoulder at Martha who's watching Dean carefully, her arms crossed over her chest. Dean reaches out and grabs the orange. Martha smiles and turns away satisfied. "She says your eating habits have seriously gone downhill recently."

Dean starts to peel the orange a fond sort of smile on his face. "Chloe always made sure I…" He stops himself and tears an orange segment off, popping it in his mouth. "Whatever."

"No, not whatever Dean." Sam shakes his head. "You've got to talk about this."

"No." Dean looks up and shakes his head. "We're not doing this." He pushes away from the table.

"You won't even tell me what happened. You won't tell anyone what happened."

"Because it's no one's business," Dean points out.

"One minute you and Chloe are fine, hell more than fine the next…most of the time you're not speaking, but when you are speaking you're at each other's throats and…I swear to God, we're actually starting to get worried that you might hurt each other." Sam sighs.

"Yeah, well you don't have to worry about that." Dean chuckles to himself.

Sam smiles. "You mean, you're not going to fight anymore?"

"No, I mean we've already hurt each other." Dean stands up to walk away.

Sam hurries around the table and intercepts him, physically stopping him with a hand to the chest. "Don't walk away from this Dean, you always walk away when things get serious." Dean looks down at Sam's hand and then back up to his face and Sam drops his arm. "Is that what happened?" Sam lowers his voice, "Were things getting too serious? Did you run?"

"What?" Dean rolls his eyes. "No. I have no problem with serious also, I'm not the one in this relationship who runs when things threaten to get serious."

"Relationship?" Sam's eyebrows raise. "I've never heard you use that word before. So were things getting serious?"

"Yes. No. I don't know," Dean snaps at him in frustration. "I thought maybe—" He stops and looks up at Sam, glaring at him in annoyance. "Oh my God, I'm not doing this. We're not talking about this, and we're definitely not doing it here."

"You won't talk to Chloe, you've got to talk to someone," Sam tells him.

"No, I don't Sam, I really don't because unlike you, I am not a giant girl. I don't have to talk about my feelings or any of that stupid touchy feely crap so just drop it OK?" Dean turns around to walk away and comes face to face with Jo, whose standing there glaring at him. "Jo." Dean forces a smile on his face. She stares at him for a minute then promptly lifts her leg and slams her heel down on Dean's instep.

"Sam." Jo smiles a genuine smile at him then goes on her way.

Dean bites his lip not to cry out and bends over in pain, breathing heavily through his nose. He should have seen it coming, he should have stepped back. For the past four months now Jo's done that every time she happens to cross his path. Dean's beginning to suspect that she's starting to seek him out just for that purpose. They never talk about it, never make a big deal out of it and that seems to be working for them.

Sam watches Jo walk out of the Mess and turns back to Dean. "Did Jo just stomp on your—"

"Yeah," Dean answers through clenched teeth.

"Do you know why?"

"Nope." Dean shakes his head, the pain starting to dissipate slowly.

"I guess we're not gonna talk about that either," Sam asks.

"Good guess." Dean claps him on the back and then limps toward the door.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"This has got to stop Chloe, you can't keep picking fights with everyone," Oliver tells her.

"I'm not picking fights," Chloe argues. "I'm just trying to do my job, which apparently everyone else seems incapable of at the moment."

"No, you're mad and you're riding everyone so hard that we can't even think straight and there's a freaking war going on out there so thinking straight is something we really need to be able to do at the moment. You keep pushing us and someone's going to end up dead, or worse," Oliver snaps at her. "Look, I know that you don't want to talk to Dean right now but you have to talk to someone. I'm here, talk to me."

"I don't want to talk." Chloe groans at him.

"Then what?" Oliver throws his hands up in the air in exasperation. "What do you want to do Chloe because I'll try anything at this point."

Chloe stares at him for a second as if weighing his words. He's about to offer to go get Castiel, if that will help when Chloe takes two quick steps and suddenly she's standing in front of him. His words die on the tip of his tongue when she looks at him hopelessly for a second before reaching up, standing on her tip toes and pressing her lips against his.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"What do you want Cass?" Dean doesn't bother turning around when he hears the footfalls along the wooden planks.

"I heard about the fight, Sam told me you were out here pouting." Castiel walks down to the edge of the dock and stands next to Dean.

"I'm not pouting," Dean snaps refusing to look at the angel.

"This has to stop you know," Castiel tells him.

"I know," Dean says and suddenly he's exhausted. He's tired of the fighting, tired of being angry all the time. Mostly he's just tired.

"You need to talk to her," Castiel presses.

"I can't talk to her," Dean scoffs then takes a deep breath. "Do you know what she did?"

"Yes," Castiel answers.

Dean turns to him at this, surprise evident on his face. "She tortured them," he clarifies for the angel, just in case Castiel isn't sure what Dean was talking about.

"Yes, she did," Castiel says. "And?"

"I don't think you understand," Dean sneers at the angel.

"No Dean, I think it is you who does not understand," Castiel says and for the first time Dean can hear an undercurrent of anger barely contained in the angel's tone.

"You're right, I don't understand," Dean snaps, unable to understand where Castiel gets off being mad. "I don't understand how she can sit there, to me of all people, and try and justify what she did."

"There are only two ways that this can end Dean, just two," Castiel tells him. "Either you say yes or she does."

Dean stares at Castiel confused. "Yes? What does she have to say yes too?"

"I'm not exactly sure on that just yet. Chuck has only seen bits and pieces, but from what he's told me, he knows that it's all going to come down to a choice, yours or hers. You've made your choice pretty clear, you said No to Michael, you've said so all along. No matter what, you won't say yes to Michael. So it's got to be her," Castiel tells him.

"That's not fair," Dean argues with him.

"I never said it was going to be fair. You don't think everyone here knows that you could have ended this months ago? That you could end this at any time? All you have to do is say yes."

"I can't do that, you know I can't do that," Dean says.

"You can though." Castiel shakes his head. "You _choose_ not to."

"Because the cost is too high," Dean argues.

"And what did you think the cost would be if you said no?" Castiel asks. "You had to know that refusing Michael would carry its own consequences. But you're not the one who pays the price for that decision."

"Chloe is." Dean finally understands.

"She does what she does so that you can say no, so that you have that choice," Castiel tells him.

"So she did it because of me is that what you're saying?" Dean glares at him. "You think that makes me feel better?"

"I'm not trying to make you feel better." Castiel shakes his head. "Contrary to what you believe, that is not my job here. The world is falling down around her ears in case you didn't notice. She hasn't slept in months. She's doing the best she can in an impossible situation with the options available to her and you are the only person on the entire planet who can even come close to understanding the weight resting on her shoulders. If you don't agree with her methods that's one thing, but don't condemn her for doing what you can't bring yourself to do."

Dean doesn't say anything and Castiel walks away frustrated. He pauses halfway to the edge of the pier and turns around. "You're spending a lot of time and energy worrying about this person you think she's becoming. Did you know she buries them herself?"

"What?" Dean turns around and glares at the angel.

"The Croats." Castiel walks back down the pier to stand in front of Dean. "When they die, she buries them. Digs their graves at night in the woods, just her and a shovel. Zod offers to help her, reminds her he can do in seconds what takes her hours. She declines. She digs and she sweats and at the end of the night her hands are covered in blisters and it doesn't matter that they'll disappear in less in an hour." Dean stares out onto the lake, refusing to acknowledge what Castiel is telling him. "She knows all of their names," Castiel continues on regardless. "Spends hours upon hours figuring out who they were before they became what they are. She does this so that when they die, she will know exactly who it is that she's killed and she does not for one second deny that's what she doing, that she's killing them. She never tries to make excuses; she never tries to justify it. She just has to hope that one day their deaths will not have been in vain."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe's fingertips are gliding, teasingly across the expanse of skin on Oliver's chest, pulling from him a deep groan of appreciation. He's not even sure when exactly she managed to unbutton his shirt. His fingers curl tight around her hips, pulling her closer as her tongue slides across his bottom lip, her teeth grazing along after it with the smallest of nibbles.

His neck is starting to hurt from the odd angle and he grips her waist hauling her up until she's sitting on top of the desk. Her knees fall open allowing him to move in between her legs, get even closer and he does, their lips never once breaking contact.

He can't smell anything but her, feel anything but Chloe pressed up against him, soft and willing and he's been waiting for this for so long he doesn't even want to think about how they got in this position. Except he does think about it. He remembers how this began, what they'd been talking about before she'd assaulted his senses.

"Wait," he mumbles against her mouth as her fingers travel down to the buttons on his jeans. "Chloe." He grabs her wrist, halting her movement and takes a step away from her, his breath ragged and fast, his eyes wild and his enjoyment evident, pressing against the seam of his jeans. "I can't believe I'm about to say this but…no." Oliver drops her wrists and takes another step back for good measure.

"No?" Chloe pants, staring at him confused.

"No." Oliver shakes his head. "This is what you do, you use sex as a way to avoid dealing with something important and I'm not going to do that with you. Not again." He pauses remembering the last time. It was after Jimmy died and he thought she'd needed him but she just needed something, anything to take away pain for a while, to make it so she didn't have to think about it, even for just a few hours. When he realized that he'd had so much more invested in the relationship than Chloe he put an end to it. It killed him, but as much as she needed him to be, he couldn't be that guy, not for her. She'd felt badly about it, she really had and she'd never asked that of him again until now.

He swallows and gets himself further under control, steeling himself for what he was about to say next. "Also, because you don't want to be here, not with me."

"I don't?" Chloe starts to feel uneasy about this. "And who do I want to be with?" she asks him crossing her arms across her chest.

"With Dean." Oliver says, leaving off the very implied, "obviously". "You want to be with Dean." He takes a deep breath and actually smiles. "I can't believe it took me so long to figure that out."

"You don't know what I want." Chloe jumps off the edge of desk and tries to walk past him but he catches her arm, forcing her to say and listen.

"No." Oliver tilts his head and looks at her, really looks at her. "I think maybe you don't know what you want. I hated it, when you were with Dean but I told myself it was okay because you kept insisting to me, to everyone that it was just physical. I believed you because I didn't think you'd lie to me like that. I never imagined that you'd lie to yourself."

"I don't-" Chloe shakes her head in protest.

"You know in a way I think…I think it's always been Dean," Oliver cuts her off. "Not to in anyway diminish what you had with Jimmy, I would never do that, you know I wouldn't. But I think you had to go through what you went through with Jimmy so that you could be here, now, so that you could be this person, so that you could be with Dean. I think you know that too. What I don't know is why you're fighting it so hard."

"He doesn't want me," Chloe finally snaps and Oliver takes a step back. "He's made that quite clear. He's disgusted by this person that I've become, hell half the time I'm disgusted by this person that I've become," she scoffs, barely managing to keep her tears at bay.

"Just who exactly is this person you think you've become?" Oliver asks her confused.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean glares at the door to Chloe's cabin with a scowl on his face. Malachi whines at his side, bumping into his leg and scratching at the door. "I'm not ready yet," Dean tells him.

He'd stood out on the pier for a good hour after Castiel left, angry at himself, angry at the world, angry at Chloe, furious actually. Four months later and he can still hear her last digging comment playing over and over in a horrible loop in his head. It was a low blow, she was lashing out, aiming to hurt him and she succeeded. But after listening to Castiel, that exact comment made him realize something important.

He _did _know all about torture. He knew the best instruments to use and which ones were nothing more than flash. He knew exactly where to cut to make someone scream and he knew exactly what to cut to make them stop. On the flip side of all that, he knew how it felt afterward, he knew the guilt that eats away at you day after day, he knew the way you questioned everything you ever thought you knew about yourself when you realized you had that kind of capacity for cruelty inside of yourself.

If he knew all that then so did Chloe and Castiel was right, he was one of the only people left on the planet that could relate to her, for that and many other reasons and for the past few months he's been so busy being judgmental of everything that she's doing, he hasn't had any time to _be_ there for her. He pulls open the door a little. He moves to enter the room but stops when he sees Oliver perched on the edge of the desk. Settled in between his legs, curled up in her favorite chair, her head resting against his chest, is Chloe.

Oliver has sort of taken over Dean's role the past few months while they've been on the outs. He's her right hand man again, he's the one she goes to for advice, for input, all the things she used to come to Dean for. Something sick twists in Dean's stomach, he hadn't thought until this moment that maybe she goes to Oliver for the other things she used to come to Dean for. It's pretty much the worst kept secret around camp that Oliver is in love with Chloe but Dean never really cared, not until now anyway.

Oliver's running his fingers through her hair and Dean winces when he sees that her eyes are puffy, likely from crying. "I don't know who I am anymore," she whispers numbly.

"You're Chloe," Oliver says simply.

She pulls away from him and rolls her eyes, sniffling a little. "Yeah, but who is Chloe? The things that I've done Oliver? Would I have done them three years ago?"

"It's a different world than it was three years ago. There's more at stake here," Oliver reminds her. "People's lives, the fate of the world."

"All the more reason to make _sure_ that the choices I make are the right ones, not just the easy ones. Am I'm just taking the easy way out? Am I not looking for other options because it's too hard?"

"Chloe, if I thought for one second that any of this was easy for you, I'd have stopped you long ago," Oliver assures her.

"Jason shouldn't have died," Chloe says quietly.

"Chloe, you can't dwell on things like that-"

"No, you don't understand." Chloe pushes herself away from him and stands up to pace. "Jason _shouldn't_ have died. Clint was standing in front of me with a knife and then the next thing I knew, somehow Jason had gotten between us, like he was shielding me with his body." Chloe shakes her head. "He had a tight grip on my wrist but I could have gotten out of it if I'd wanted to. I was stronger than him, if I'd tried, really tried I could have gotten free. But I didn't, I just stood there." Chloe looks down at her wrist. "At first I thought, Jason and Clint were friends and Clint was obviously mad at me but maybe Jason could calm him down then I could explain." Oliver nodded.

"But then I thought, a very small part of me thought, that in the grand scheme of things, when it really came down to it, I was more important than Jason, infinitely more important. I kept thinking, what if Jason can't calm him down, what if something happens, but this time, this time I don't come back. I thought—" her voice cracks slightly and when she speaks again, it's barely above a whisper. "I thought that if something happens, better it happens to Jason than me." She looks up at Oliver. "I thought he would be an acceptable loss."

"Chloe." Oliver shakes his head.

"When did I start thinking of people as acceptable losses? Who does that?" Chloe wraps her arms around her middle.

"You do," Dean says stepping into the room. "You have to. It sucks and it tears you up inside and you'll always question whether you made the right decision but it doesn't matter. You make it and you live with it, you just have to."

"Hi," Chloe says, too surprised by his presence to come up with anything better and Dean offers her a tentative smile of his own.

"I think we need to talk." Dean steps further into the room.

"I think we do." Chloe nods.

"And that's my cue to leave." Oliver sighs. He drops a brief kiss on Chloe's forehead, offers Dean a curt nod then heads for the door.

When he pulls it open, Victor practically falls into the cabin, his breath is coming in desperate rasping gulps. He's swallowing the air so fast he almost thinks he might throw it back up. Chloe looks almost amused at the spectacle. "Can I help you?" she asks him slowly.

"There's a…" Victor leans over to catch his breath. "You should…" He looks up takes a deep breath and he still can't speak so he turns around and motions with his hands for them to follow.

"I think Lassie wants us to follow him." Dean smirks slightly.

"Is Timmy stuck in a well?" Oliver asks, joining in the teasing and even Chloe chuckles slightly.

Victor glares at them and opens his mouth just as a very impressive, bone rattling roar pierces the air. Chloe, Dean, and Oliver exchange a look as Victor takes off back in the direction from which he came. They don't even wait for his feet to hit the ground before falling in step behind him.

Chloe easily outstrips Oliver and Dean, she sees Victor flailing to a suddenly stop in front of her and just as she breaches the edge of the main clearing she sees why. She digs her heels into the soft dirt stopping her forward momentum and bringing her body to an abrupt halt. She flings both of her arms out to her side catching Oliver with one hand and Dean with the other, stopping them in place.

"Holy shit." Dean gasps and takes a few voluntary steps back. Chloe drops her hands and just stares.

"That's a lion," Chloe whispers harshly to Victor. It is in fact a rather large male lion pacing anxiously in the middle of the clearing, his head darting from person to person, ready to pounce but unsure as to what's the bigger threat. He lets loose another very massive roar and Chloe resists the urge to step back like everyone else does. She doesn't move a muscle, doesn't look away but shoots her eyes to Victor briefly.

"I tried to tell you," he pants, still slightly out of breath.

"You maybe should have tried a little harder," Chloe whispers. She can see the massive muscles of the cat's hind legs tense and Chloe knows this is not a good thing. Before she can even think about what she's doing she takes a step forward. She tries to take another but Dean's arm reaches out, his hand grabbing onto the back of her shirt, holding her in place.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he whispers at her.

The lion is watching her now because of the sudden movement so she's careful not to be too loud. "I know what I'm doing," Chloe tells him, her lips barely moving.

"Really?" He sounds skeptical. "You have a stint in a former life as a lion tamer that I don't know about? Have a lot of experience dealing with wild, hungry, predatory cats?" he snaps at her.

She risks turning her head, the movement painfully slow. She makes sure that her eyes meet Dean and she smiles. "Look I know that you hate me right now and that's OK. I don't need you to like me, I just need you to trust me." She reaches behind her, curling her fingers softly around his wrist and pulling gently. His hand untangles from her shirt and falls to his side, her fingers still wrapped around his wrist.

"Yeah OK." Dean nods more surprised by her words than anything else and she drops his arm to turn back around.

"Everyone just calm down," Chloe calls out. The lion's attention is now completely focused on her which is both a good thing and a bad thing. "Don't move, don't scream, don't do anything." She forces herself to take a deep breath, and then another, and thinks for a second it's having a calming effect on the lion, or it was until Sam comes running from the direction of the armory carry two long range sniper rifles. He tosses one to another hunter and this captures the attention of the lion, taking it away from Chloe.

They crouch and ready their weapons and Chloe takes off running across the clearing. She slides in front of them, blocking their view of the lion with her hands held up in supplication. "Don't shoot." Chloe glares at them. "Put the guns down, what the hell are you doing?"

"It's a lion," Sam says confused but puts his weapon down anyway.

"Yes, but it's not doing anything wrong," Chloe points out as the other hunter lays his gun down. "He's scared and confused and probably hungry."

"And you know what lions eat? Meat." Sam points out. "Do you know what we're made of?"

"I don't know about you but I'm made of sugar and spice and everything nice," she says with a wry smile. "At least that's what my Gran used to tell me." Sam manages to crack a small smile. "I've got this okay, just back off," Chloe orders and turns around slowly only to groan. Apparently, while her back had been turned to talk to Sam, Malachi had found his way into the clearing and placed himself firmly in between her and the would be feline assailant. He plants his feet squarely in the soft ground, bares all his teeth and growls. It's a strange sound to Chloe, one that she's never heard before. Sure he's growled at Dean, barked a few times even but it always seemed playful, never like this.

The lion's complete attention is now focused on the dog and he answers Malachi's growl with a low throaty one of his own. Malachi barks and the lion in turn roars again and the sound vibrates through Chloe's bones. "No, Malachi. No," Chloe scolds the dog, running up beside him, sliding to her knees on the ground so that she's face to face with him. "Don't bark at the big hungry lion," she says, her hands shaking as she grabs his collar. She tugs lightly, forcing his attention onto her instead of the lion. "Look at me, I'm okay." She grabs the dog's face in her hands. "I'm fine, I'm okay." She moves her eyes from the dog's and sees Dean frozen in place staring at her with abject fear.

That's when she feels it, hot sticky breath, right at the back of her neck. She forces herself to calm down and swallows. "Go." She tells the dog firmly. "Go to Dean." She gives him a light shove but he doesn't move. "Malachi, go now," Chloe says in her sternest voice and the dog slowly backs out of the clearing until he's standing tensely at Dean's side. Dean brings his hands down to grab at the back of the dog's neck squeezing, the action calming him just as much as it does the dog.

Chloe closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and turns around slowly. When she opens her eyes again, she finds herself less than a foot away from the lion. No one breathes, no one moves, not Chloe, not the lion.

"Hey there," Chloe whispers softly, her fingers twitching at her side involuntarily. The lion's nose twitches in response and then it sits down. They stay there, eye to eye staring at each other for a beat before Chloe speaks again. "You're not going to hurt me are you?" she asks tilting her head and studying him. "No, I don't think you are." She inches a little closer on her knees and lifts her hand slowly. She can see Martha across the clearing hitch her breath and she smiles in what she hopes is a reassuring manner.

Her hand is steady, not shaking a bit as she lays it down on the ridge of the lion's nose. His eyes close, almost as if in appreciation and her fingers slide up the nose to the top of the head. The hair of the mane is softer than she thought it would be. She scratches his scalp lightly and swears she can hear a purr emanate from deep inside the lion's chest. "No, you're not gonna hurt me." She applies some pressure, a small amount, and the lion lowers his whole body to the ground, lying before Chloe in supplication. She moves and scratches behind his ears, a smile on her face now. "Good boy," she whispers.

As a sign of respect, she offers him the same and lowers herself to the ground, sitting cross-legged in the dirt, their heads at the same height, their noses practically touching and that's how they stay.

People slowly wander off, back to their chores, back to whatever they'd been doing before but still Chloe sits and stares. Soon the sun falls from the sky and the moon rises but neither Chloe nor the lion move.

"How long has she been out here?" Castiel steps up beside Dean and passes him a cup of coffee, from the large thermos he brought along.

"Four hours," Dean says checking his watch.

"How long have you been out here?" Castiel asks him.

"Four hours." Dean sips the coffee slowly and pretends he doesn't notice Castiel's answering smile. "What is she doing?"

"I wish I knew." Castiel offers one last look at the two of them, illuminated by moonlight and smiles before walking away, leaving Dean to watch over Chloe alone.

Almost an hour later, just as his arm is starting to fall asleep from where he's been leaning against the tree, with no warning both Chloe and the lion stand simultaneously. They stare at each other for another second before Chloe nods and the lion takes a step back. It turns away from Chloe slowly as though the act is physically painful for it and heads off into the woods. It stops, just at the edge of the tree line and turns around, offering up one last primal roar before slinking off into the dark cover of night.

Dean pushes himself off of the tree and makes his way over to Chloe. "You have nerves of steel you know that," he says, his tone conversational as he passes her the thermos of coffee.

"Not really." She sips at it greedily and he notices her skin has a slight tinge of blue to it. He unzips the hoodie he's wearing, slips it off his shoulders and drapes it over Chloe's. "Thanks. It's freezing out here. My butt is numb, I could drink another whole pot of this." She holds up the half empty container. "And I need a shower." Dean raises his eyebrows at her. "I'm pretty sure I peed my pants a little earlier," she tells him sheepishly and he laughs.

"More coffee and a shower. I think I can handle that." He throws his arm over her shoulder before he can think about it and rubs her arm, trying to warm her up as they slowly make their way back to her cabin. "I don't hate you," he tells her when they get inside. "I never hated you. I'm not sure I could ever hate you."

"Oh," Chloe says, her teeth chattering slightly. "That's good to know." She smiles at him then ducks into the bathroom.

Chloe's muscles are aching and her fingers are wrinkly by the time she tears herself away from the hot spray. She knows Ellen will probably have a few choice words for her in the morning when she has no hot water left to clean the dishes but at the moment Chloe doesn't care. She dresses quickly, spying Dean's hoodie on the edge of her bed and slipping it on over her t-shirt.

"And the lamb shall lie down with the lion," Father Mac says from the bedroom doorway.

"That's not the actual verse you know." Chloe turns around to look at him. "Everyone gets it wrong."

"I know." Father Mac smiles. _"__The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."_

"Isaiah 11:6." Chloe nods.

"For someone so skeptical, you sure are knowledgeable of Scripture." Father Mac steps into the room.

"You know what they say, know your enemy." Chloe shrugs, picking up the brush and attempting to brush out the wet tangles in her hair.

"And God is your enemy?"

"I used to think so." Chloe pauses. "I'm not so sure anymore."

"Would you mind if I asked, what you were doing out there?" Father Mac asks and Chloe sets the brush down, looks at the priest and takes a deep breath.

"I was searching," Chloe tells him.

"For what exactly?" Father Mac perches himself on the edge of Chloe's bed.

"God," Chloe says.

Father Mac allows himself a small smile. "And did you find him?"

"I think I did," Chloe admits.

He stands and nods at her. "So do you think I'll see you next Sunday?" Father Mac asks on his way to the door.

"I said I found him." Chloe smiles. "That doesn't mean I'm ready to talk to him."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

When she walks out of the bedroom, Jo and Dean are in the Situation Room, glaring at each other. Jo turns away from Dean and offers Chloe a genuine smile. "I did some research. There was a Safari Park about 15 miles West of here. It was probably abandoned after Croatoan hit, the animals left to fend for themselves. I think that's where the lion came from."

"Explains the animal mutilations we found last year." Chloe thinks back, remembering all the deer carcasses they found right after the virus hit.

"Anyway, I just wanted to stop by and check that you weren't," Jo explains, looking her over, "you know…"

"Eaten by a lion?" Chloe looks down. "All body parts present and accounted for," she assures Jo.

"Good, well, you must be tired. I'll see you tomorrow." Jo walks past Dean and as casually as she can, she stomps her heel down on his foot then continues on to the door.

"Son of a bitch," Dean grunts out. "Every freakin' time."

Chloe watches her go. "Did she just…"

"It's a thing we do." Dean tries to brush it off. "I…you know…exist and in turn she shatters my foot."

"Do you want me to talk to her about it?" Chloe offers.

"No, I'm starting to get used to it actually." Dean takes a step forward, putting a bit of pressure on it and cringing again. "Okay, but seriously I think she broke some bones that time."

"Let me take a look at it." Chloe pulls out a chair and pushes him down into. She carefully peels off his boot and looks down at his foot in surprise. "Wow, that's really, purple." She winces. "How long has she been doing this?"

"About four months now." Dean shrugs, resisting the urge to yank his foot away as she presses her fingers against a particularly fresh bruise.

"Four months?" Chloe looks up at him. "So it started about the time we had our fight?" Chloe prods another bruise and this time he does pull his foot away.

"Son of a bitch." Dean looks down at Chloe. "I can't believe I didn't put the two things together." Chloe reaches down and grabs his foot again, setting it in her lap. "She's wrecking my foot because she's mad that we're fighting?" He looks over at Chloe. "Are you…are you _smiling_?"

"What? It's sweet." Chloe shrugs.

"It's not sweet. It's insane. Also, she just takes your side? She doesn't even know what happened. She just assumes you're right and I'm wrong? How is that fair?" Dean asks.

"It's not about who was right and who was wrong. It's not about taking sides. She knows you hurt me so she's trying to hurt you," Chloe reassures him.

"She's succeeding." Dean grunts and Chloe looks up at him. "And she didn't need to bother. I didn't exactly come out of that fight unscathed you know."

"I know." Chloe nods at him. "Nothing's broken." She sets his foot back on the ground and he pulls on his boot. She stands up and starts to pace. "I guess this is the part where we talk?" Dean opens his mouth but Chloe steps forward. "I'm not going to talk about the Croats, I'm not going to talk about what I did. I did it and it's done, I can't go back, I can't change it and you know what. I wouldn't go back and change it. I'm glad that I did it." She swallows hard, knowing that this could end badly but needing to get it all out.

"Glad?" Dean asks.

"I'm not—that's the wrong word," Chloe groans. "I know you're not okay with what I did, _I'm_ not okay with it. What I did to those people…I hated it, I hated ever second of what I was doing, while I was doing it, but I knew that it had to be done and I'm not sorry. Do you have any idea how many lives it's saved in the four months it's been out there? Casualties in the field have gone down sixty-four percent. Sixty-four percent in four months, Dean that's amazing."  
"It is," he agrees with her.

"You have to understand there are going to be things that I need to do and I can't hesitate to do them because I'm worried that you won't like it," Chloe tells him.

Dean nods, standing slowly, trying to gather his thoughts. "I hate what you did. I hate what you did so much, but even more than that I hate that you had to do it, that I couldn't stop you, couldn't help you. I hate that you had to make that decision and I hate that you felt you had to make that decision without me, because you didn't think that I could understand. The thing is, I _do_ understand." He reaches forward and grabs her hand. "I don't want you to ever think you can't come to me with something. And the fact that you thought that you couldn't, is my fault I know that. I made you feel like I would judge you and I'm sorry for that."

She takes a deep breath. "I think that maybe you look at me and you want me to be this saint, but in the end, when it really comes down to it, you _need _me to be a sinner," Chloe tells him. "You can't have it both ways, believe me. I've tried. I've been trying but I can't do it anymore, it's tearing me apart."

"I know," Dean whispers.

"This is me, this is who I am. It's not who I wanted to be, it's not who I thought I would become but it's who I am and I need to know if you can handle that. If you can take me as I am. Warts and all. Because if you can't-" She swallows hard. "If you can't, then I need to walk away and I need to do it now, because if I don't do it now, I'm not sure I'll be able to later." She lets out a shaky breath, her stomach is doing somersaults, threatening to jump right out of her throat and he just stands there staring at her.

Dean stares at her and honestly the whole time they've known each other, this is the most vulnerable he's ever seen her. Even when they first met and her wounds were still raw and she was still unguarded, even after Lucifer had taken her, after her father had died, she still had never been more open or honest with him then she was being at this moment in time.

He thinks about something she'd said when she was mourning the loss of the Castiel she knew and loved, "_Do you have any idea what an amazing feeling that is? To have someone know you, the real you and like you anyway, to see all of those things deep inside of you that you hate about yourself and not care?"_ He did know that feeling because Chloe knew everything about him. He'd told her most of his story that first day, but he'd opened up more and more over time and she knew it all. She knew things Sam didn't even know and she never even flinched, none of it had mattered to her. She certainly hadn't turned her back on him. Inversely Dean knows how it feels when someone knows the real you, and it's not good enough.

Chloe opens her mouth to tell him that she understands and that there are no hard feelings but could he kindly leave so that she can go curl herself into a ball under her covers when he suddenly surges forward, sliding one hand around the back of her neck as the other grips her hip tightly and pulls her against him, crashing their bodies together in a tangle of lips and limbs. "I can handle it," he pants into her mouth, but refuses to pull away to breathe. She's not complaining, she's pushing right back, her tongue delving into his mouth dragging a deep guttural groan from Dean.

He releases her neck and grabs her butt with both hands and pulls up. Chloe wraps her legs around his waist, her fingers digging into his shoulder blades and he makes his way to the bedroom. Her hands slip under his shirt, the feel of her fingers against his skin is too much for him and his knees give out. Thankfully they're at the edge of the mattress and they go tumbling down.

Dean tears his lips away from hers and works his way down the side of her neck. She arches her back to the touch of his hands and he grabs the hem of the hoodie, pulling it up over her head and tossing it over his shoulder.

"So I guess you _can_ handle it?" she pants staring up at him.

"Of course I can handle it Chloe." He looks down at her. "I've just been waiting for you to offer it."

"I…" Chloe shakes her head at him confused.

"I'm in this all the way Chloe, I've been in this. Maybe not from day one but I've been in this for a while." He kisses her softly. "But you, you weren't ready and after Jimmy I didn't want to push you so I waited for you to get here on your own." He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. "There were moments when I thought you were here with me or on the verge on getting here. Then something would happen, you would get mad at me or I would get mad at you and we were right back where we started."

"I _was_ here," Chloe admitted. "But I was scared."

"_You_ were scared? Dean sits up, leaning back to sit on his heels. "You? I just watched you stare down a freaking lion and you were scared of what? Of me?"

"Yes." Chloe pushes herself up so that she's resting on her elbows. "I was scared of you, I was terrified of you. Earlier today, I knew, even if that lion did lunge at me and tear out my heart, I would just…grow a new one, heal the wound. I also knew that if I let myself go in all the way with you and you tore my heart out, there's no way I could heal from that."

"I could never tear your heart out," Dean whispers.

"But you did," Chloe reminds him. "That night we fought and you walked out the door. I thought I'd lost you and I didn't even know then that I wanted you."

"You didn't lose me." Dean kisses her softly. "You never lost me. Just-from now on, no matter how worried you are about how I might take something, you need to come to me with it and we'll deal with it together."

"Promise." She reaches up and grabs his face, kissing him softly. Dean pushes harder against her and she lays a hand on his chest, pushing him away gently. "Wait." She takes a deep breath and forces herself to put a bit of space between their bodies. "Would you mind if we just...didn't?" She asked thinking about what Oliver had said to her earlier, about using sex to avoid issues.

"Didn't what?" Dean frowns at her.

"Sex," Chloe tells him. "If we didn't have sex." Dean frowns. "I just…I don't need sex, OK," Chloe says. "I need you. Right now, I just need you." Chloe says. She can't help thinking of how true that statement is and how not two hours ago she was convinced of the exact opposite of that.

"Oh thank God," Dean groans in relief and falls onto his back on the mattress. Chloe leans over him and raises her eyebrows at him amused.

He grabs her face and leans up to kiss her softly, reassuringly. "No, it's not you. I'm just exhausted." He laughs and Chloe's eyebrows raise even higher. "I haven't slept more than two hours at a time in the past few months," he admits.

"Why?" Chloe asks him, lying down and settling in at his side.

"I've been staying in Oliver's cabin," Dean tells her. "He snores."

"Why have you been staying with Oliver?" Chloe frowns.

"I couldn't exactly stay here after that spectacular fight," he reminds her. "And earlier that day you gave away my bed."

Chloe pauses then smiles sheepishly, remembering giving Dean's bed to Joshua. "Oh. I did do that didn't I?" Chloe lays silently at his side as his breathing evens out, biting her lip, fighting an internal debate until she finally gives in. "Dean, about Oliver. I-"

"I don't want to know." Dean says, swallowing around the lump in his throat. "It doesn't matter."

"Nothing happened," Chloe says quickly. "And nothing happened because I don't want him. I want you."

"You've got me." Dean kisses the top of her head. "Forever."

"Don't—" Chloe tilts her head up to look at him. "Don't make promises you can't keep OK."

"I never make promises I don't intend to keep," Dean says.

"Forever's a long time," Chloe points out, swallowing hard.

"I told you." He kisses her nose. "I'm in this. Besides. The way things are going these days. Forever might be just a few more months." Dean shrugs, running his fingers through her hair. Chloe laughs, yanking the pillow out from under his head and smacking him with it. He grabs the pillow from her and wrestles her to the mattress, distracting her with a deep, languorous kiss. "So what do you think? Can you handle a few months?"

"I can handle forever," Chloe assures him.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_"Dinner was good tonight." Chloe takes off her earrings and sets them on top of her dresser. She is back at the apartment above the Talon. _

_"The chicken was dry." Dean calls out from the bathroom as the water cuts off._

_"I didn't think so." Chloe shakes her head as she struggles with the clasp on her necklace. Hands cover hers and deftly open the clasp sliding the necklace off before placing a kiss to the top of her spine._

_"You're sweet but it was way too dry." He smiles against her skin. "Practically inedible." _

_"You always do that." Chloe turns around to face him. "You always find something wrong with a perfectly good meal." She brings her arms up and wraps them around his neck. "You know what I think? I think that you're just fishing for compliments." _

_"Maybe I am." Dean smiles and kisses her as he starts to walk backward, pulling Chloe with him. His legs hit the bed and they both go tumbling towards the mattress, laughter falling from their lips. They make their way up to the head of the bed, their kisses slow and soft, neither of them in a hurry to move things along, content with a sort of lazy exploration. _

_Dean pulls Chloe closer, and she groans in appreciation at first but then she feels something wet seeping through her t-shirt. "Dean." She laughs pulling her lips away from his and opening her eyes. She swallows hard when she sees a pained look on his face. "Dean?" she asks concerned now and he lets out a chocked gurgle as blood trickles from the corner of his mouth. She looks down and sees that the wetness she'd felt earlier is Dean's blood. It's pouring out of a wound in his chest and soaking into the bed sheets. "Oh God, Dean." Chloe presses her hand to the wound but the blood flow won't stop. _

_"I'm going to die," Dean rasps drawing her attention back to his face. "I'm going to die, Chloe."_

_"No," Chloe whispers, tears falling down her cheeks. "No, I can fix this, I can stop this." _

_"You can't. It's going to happen, Chloe." Dean coughs. "I'm going to die and it's all your fault." His eyes close and his head lolls to the side, lifeless._

_"No." Chloe pulls back, rolling away from him to go find help only to find herself face to face with Jimmy. _

_"You can't stop it," he warns her. "You killed me and you'll kill Dean." _

_"I didn't kill you Jimmy," Chloe argues with him. _

_"Of course you did. Why else would you be covered in my blood?" Jimmy asks, bringing a hand up to her face and offering her a small smile. _

_Chloe looks down, ready to argue that she's not covered in his blood, she's covered in Dean's blood but she stops herself when she sees she's somehow changed into her wedding dress. Her wedding dress that's covered in Jimmy's blood. _

_"Marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life." _

_"No," Chloe screams. Climbing off the bed is made harder with the weight of the bloody wedding dress but she somehow manages to find her footing. She stares at the bed, unable to speak, unable to breathe, the lifeless bodies of Dean and Jimmy staring back at her._

_"You know it's true. It's all true," a new voice tells her. She spins around quickly and gasps when she sees Lucifer sitting behind her, calmly sipping coffee at her dining table._

_"What are you doing here?" Chloe asks in a panic, pulling up the bottom of her dress to walk over. _

_"I wanted to talk to you." He waves a hand and another cup of coffee appears on the table next to him. _

_"So what you thought it would be fun to give me some horrible nightmares?" Chloe asks angrily, feeling strangely violated by his intrusion here. _

_"That would be fun for me but no actually. I'm just an observer this time; I have nothing to do with the content. That's between you and your subconscious. Though it is pretty symbolic, you in your virginal white wedding gown all covered in the blood of your lovers…very poignant."_

_"If you didn't do this, then why are you here?" Chloe asks him sitting down warily. _

_"Like I told you, I wanted to talk to you but seeing as how unless you're standing right in front of me I can't see you, I figured this was easier than laying siege to your camp and slaughtering everyone to get your attention." He takes a sip of the coffee and frowns. "Do you have cream and sugar?"_

_Chloe nods numbly and walks to the kitchen, grabbing the cream and sugar and slapping it on the table. "So." Lucifer dumps the entire cup of sugar into his mug and a drop of creamer then takes a long satisfying sip. "Like I said, we need to talk." _

_Chloe closes her eyes and whispers under her breath, "When I open my eyes, I'll be awake, this isn't real, it's just a dream."  
_  
_"That's a myth you know," he tells her, leaning back in his seat. "You can't make yourself wake up from a dream." She opens her eyes and sees she is in fact still in the dream. He studies her with a critical eye. "Though if you concentrate hard enough you can probably change out of that dress." _

_Chloe closes her eyes and when she opens them this time she's no longer in the wedding dress. She turns around and her breath catches in her throat when she sees Dean and Jimmy are still lying on the bed._

_"Nothing you can do about that, your subconscious still has some issues it needs to work out there." Lucifer shakes his head. _

_"What do you want?" Chloe asks him, her teeth clenched._

_"I want to offer you a deal." His amusement is gone now, he's suddenly all business. "I'm tired of this game we're playing you and I. I take over Chicago, and you take back Miami. I kill a bunch of your little soldiers in Mexico, you kill a bunch of my demons in San Antonio. I just don't feel like we're getting anywhere."_

_"What do you suggest?" Chloe sneers._

_"Come with me, fulfill your destiny and I can promise you-" he glances over at the lifeless body of Dean on the bed, "that won't ever happen." _

_"What are you talking about?" Chloe asks, exhausted._

_"I'm talking about eternal life, and not the lame kind that my father is offering but the real kind, the true eternal life, here on earth, by my side." _

_"And if I say no?" _

_"For starters, I'll rethink the plan to lay siege to your camp and slaughter everyone within its gates," he says. "I'll stop sitting idly by and watch your amusing yet futile attempt at amassing an army against me and I'll bring the fight to you. Spoiler alert – you're gonna loose." _

_"You're saying if I go with you, you'll end all this?" Chloe asks confused. "You'll stop this war?"_

_"No." Lucifer laughs. "There is no stopping this war. One way or another this is going to happen and everyone is going to die. Though I might make an exception for a special few." _

_Chloe pauses. "So my options are what? Kill God to help you destroy the human race and Dean lives, or fight against you and he dies?" _

_"Or there's the third option," he says seriously. "You fight against me, you lose, but I let Dean live. I magnanimously give him his life, eternal life, as my personal bitch boy." Lucifer finishes his coffee and stands up. "Choose the first option Chloe. Trust me, the end result for you is much, much better. There's no honor in being righteous, especially when all it brings you is death and pain. You're an exceptional leader Chloe, just the sort of person I need to help me rebuild. I can give you power you've never dreamed of, you'd be my right hand. " He puts a hand on her cheek._

_"Better to reign in hell?" Chloe snorts pulling away from him. _

_"Something like that." Lucifer smiles. "Obviously you'll need some time to think it over so I'll give you until tomorrow at midnight. If I don't hear from you, well…" He winks and snaps his fingers._

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 2, 2012**

**12:01 p.m.**

Chloe's eyes fly open and she sits up in the bed. She looks down, relieved to see that she is not in the Talon and not covered in blood. She turns to her side and sees Dean lying beside her, his chest rising a falling with every breath he takes. She forces her breathing to slow down.

She can't help herself, she reaches down and pulls up his shirt, relaxing only when she sees his pristine chest, no blood, no wounds. He moans in appreciation as her hands graze lightly over his abdomen and his hand wraps around her thigh, rubbing her leg softly. Slowly she removes her legs from his grasp and slides out of the bed, bending down to press a soft kiss to his temple before walking out of the room.

Somehow she's not surprised to see Chuck sitting at her desk, his face illuminated by one of Oracle's screens, a half empty bottle of whiskey on the table next to him, pages shooting out of the printer. She lets the door click shut and Chuck spins around to face her, a glass of the amber liquid in his hand. "We need to talk," he says before downing the glass' contents.

"We do." Chloe nods. She walks over to the coffee pot and picks up her favorite mug, passing it to Chuck. He pours the both of them a generous slosh of whiskey and slides the mug over to Chloe.

"You had a dream?" Chloe asks him, taking in his bloodshot eyes and his ashen face.

"More than one," Chuck admits.

She downs the whole thing before passing it back to him. "He's coming isn't he?" Chloe coughs slightly as the whiskey slides down her throat.

"Oh yeah." Chuck nods giving her the refilled mug. "Tonight, or well tomorrow morning at 12:01."

Chloe pauses remembering her dream. _I'll give you until tomorrow at midnight. If I don't hear from you, well… _"How bad?" Chloe asks.

"It's over in minutes." Chuck takes another sip of the whiskey. "We never had a chance. It was a massacre."

Chloe swallows. "Does anyone survive?" Chuck swallows hard, looks over at the bedroom door quickly then turns away, his face suddenly pale and Chloe remembers what else Lucifer said, '_There's a third option…I let Dean live, forever, as my personal bitch boy.' _She puts a comforting hand on his shoulder and takes a deep breath to steel herself. "It's OK, don't worry. I have a plan."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe slowly turns the knob of the cabin door and eases it open as quietly as she can. The moon's still out but faint so her visibility is only about 10%. All of the cabins are the same though so she doesn't even really need to see. She steps inside and closes the door behind her then takes two steps to her right and five steps forward. Halfway through the fifth step her leg slams into the metal post of the bed frame's foot board. She freezes, not even daring to breathe and counts to thirty. When nothing happens she edges her way around the bed, toward the headboard. She grabs the edge of the blanket and tears it away but the bed is empty.

Someone grabs her wrist and spins her around. Instinctively she kicks out, sweeping her mystery assailant's legs out from under them, but their grip on her wrist doesn't loosen and she's pulled down to the floor on top of them, throwing her off guard. Her opponent uses that against her, rolling them over and straddling her hips, holding both of her wrists firmly above her head. "I should have known." Chloe pants out. "It was too quiet. No snoring. How'd you know I was here?"

"The third step squeaks." Oliver pants and squints at her in the darkness. "Chloe?" He leans back a little, loosening his grip slightly on her wrists.

"Hey." She smiles up at him sheepishly. "I need a favor."

"Does this favor involve me putting on a pair of pants?" Oliver raises his eyebrows.

Chloe looks down the length of his body and smiles. "It requires it actually."

"Pity." Oliver releases her wrists and stands up, pulling her to her feet. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness so neither of them bother to turn a light on. He looks around the floor of the cabin until he sees his pants and starts to pull them on. "So this favor? Am I going to like it?"

"Probably not." Chloe shakes her head. "I need to borrow your bike."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

When Chloe has the top of the chapel's steeple in her sights, she lets off the gas, letting the bike coast to a slow stop. She stares at the sun peaking over the chapel roof, blinding her for just a moment. She takes a moment to ask herself if she's really going to do this, if she's really ready to risk it all.

When she closes her eyes she sees Dean's body, bloody and still lying on her crisp white sheets and she shifts the bike into first, twists her wrist to give it a bit of a gas and takes off. She has no clue if she's ready, she's not even really sure she can pull this off, but it's the only option she's got left.

Before too long, she's pulling into the deserted parking lot of St. Mary's Cathedral. Chloe parks the bike by the chapel, takes off the helmet and shakes her hair out, zipping up her new leather jacket. She's glad she wore it now, it's still a little chilly in the mornings before the sun fully rises. Carefully, she hooks the helmet onto the bikes handle, slips her hands in her jacket pockets and heads up the hill. She walks around the chapel, through the courtyard and out onto the old convent grounds.

She sees him up ahead, basking in a patch of sunlight, waiting for her. He turns when she gets closer and smiles brightly. "You're early," Lucifer says.

_I know I've dreamed you a sin and a lie_

_I have my freedom but I don't have much time_

_Faith has been broken, tears must be cried_

_Let's do some living, after we die_

_-The Rolling Stones_


	17. Thanks for the Memories

**Thanks for the Memories**

_Say a prayer, but let the good times roll_

_In case God doesn't show_

_And I want these words to make things right_

_But it's the wrongs that make the words come to life_

_Who does he think he is?_

_If that's the worst you've got better put your fingers back to the keys_

**April 31, 2012**  
**11:45 p.m.**

Chuck gasps and sits up in his bed. Becky snorts beside him, then rolls over away from him. He throws his legs off the edge of the mattress and rests his head in his hands, rubbing his temples furiously. Grabbing the yellow bottle on his bedside table, he shakes it, gauging how many he has left, not enough. They're the strongest painkiller that Emil felt comfortable giving him and he's gone through them much faster than he should have. He looks at the pill bottle then over to the cabinet where he knows there's whiskey. The internal debate is over quickly-he needs to be sober for this, so he opens the bottle and shakes a few pills into his can drink when he's finished. He stands up and pulls his pants on, buttoning them as he heads out the door. He's back seconds later, grabbing the whiskey from the cabinet before he makes his way to Chloe's cabin.

He manages to coax Oracle to life with very little effort. She's been nicer lately, well nicer relative to Oracle. Possibly due to a revelation she had wherein she is now convinced that she has a soul and subsequently is now worried about getting into heaven. Even still, he had to promise to scan all the Supernatural books into her database before she would open any programs to him. Since he got to camp he's been using her systems to type up all of his dreams and she's recently become interested in learning the back story.

He's putting the finishing touches on it when he hears Chloe wake up. He closes his eyes, thinking about the dream she's just had and feels sorry for her. When he realized at first that he'd actually dreamed Chloe's dream, he'd felt strange, like he'd intruded on a very personal and private thing. It had given him a bit of insight into her subconscious which was good, but he felt it would be best however if he left that part out of the official record.

He waits until he hears the door open behind him, before hitting print and reaches for the glass of whiskey in front of him. The door closes quietly and he spins around in the chair to face Chloe. "We need to talk," he says before finishing what's left in his glass.

"We do." Chloe nods. She walks over and grabs her favorite coffee mug, passing it to Chuck for him to fill. He smiles and pours the both of them a generous amount then slides the mug back to Chloe.

"You had a dream?" Chloe asks him.

"More than one," Chuck admits.

To brace herself, Chloe swallows her whole drink in one gulp then hands him the now empty mug. "He's coming isn't he?" She coughs slightly.

"Oh yeah." Chuck nods giving her the refilled mug. "Tomorrow night, or well Wednesday morning at 12:01."

Chuck can tell she's remembering what Lucifer told her in her dream. _I'll give you until tomorrow at midnight. If I don't hear from you, well… _

"How bad?" Chloe asks.

"It's over in minutes." Chuck takes another sip of the whiskey, not even wanting to recall his own dream. "We never had a chance. It was a massacre."

Chloe sucks in a deep breath. "Does anyone survive?" Chuck swallows hard, looks over at the bedroom door quickly where he knows that Dean is still sleeping and thinks about all the horrors that Lucifer will put Dean through and shudders. Chloe puts a comforting hand on his shoulder and takes a deep breath to steel herself. "It's okay, don't worry. I have a plan."

"I thought you might say that." Chuck sighs and hands over the stack of papers from the printer. "_This_ was my second dream."  
Chloe reads through the pages in her hand and shakes her head when she gets to a particular part. "Fucking Zod." Chloe looks up at Chuck.

"I'm not going to say I told you so." Chuck takes another swig from the bottle. "But…you know…"

"Yeah." Chloe flips through the pages, speed reading, absorbing as much as she can as quickly as she can and before she knows it, she's finished. She looks up at him confused. "That's it?" She asks, flipping to the last page again and reading it over. "But it doesn't say…how does it all end?" Chloe asks him hopelessly.

"I don't-I don't-I don't know." Chuck swallows. The lie is evident on his face but for some reason Chloe doesn't call him on it. Chuck is the only person that Chloe doesn't call out when he lies, possibly because she knows that if he's lying, it's because she really doesn't want to know the truth.

"Right." Chloe nods. "Well thanks, this helps." She rolls up the pages and clenches them tightly in her fist. "I'll have to change the plan slightly but…thanks."

"That's what I'm here for." Chuck takes one last gulp of the whiskey before pouring what's left of the bottle into Chloe's mug.

"What plan?" Dean asks from the doorway of the bedroom and they both turn to him.

"And that is my cue to leave," Chuck says, standing up and walking to the door. He pauses and turns back to Chloe. "Are you going to drink that?"

"Oh." Chloe looks down at the mug. "No." She grabs it and hands it to Chuck. He nods his thanks and heads out the door.

"What are you doing up?" Dean pushes himself off the door frame and walks over to Chloe, sitting in the seat that Chuck just vacated.

"Bad dream," Chloe says.

"Seems to be a lot of that going around." He picks up the empty bottle and shakes his head. "Whiskey?" Dean whistles. "Must have seen something really bad."

"You have no idea," Chloe whispers and pulls her feet into the chair, crushing her knees to her chest. "Did we wake you?"

"The empty bed woke me." Dean reaches out and grabs the rolled up paper from her fingers. "Can I?"

Chloe nods, resting her chin on her knees as Dean flips through the pages, his eyes darting back and forth as he reads every word, every line. When he finishes he puts the pages down and looks up at Chloe. "Do you know when—"

"Tomorrow, well technically Wednesday." Chloe answers. "May 2nd."

"May 2nd?" Dean looks at her confused.

"Yeah, why?"

"Nothing, that's just…that's the day I died." He says shaking his head. "Suppose if I'm gonna die again, it's as good a day as any." He turns to Chloe who has a strange stricken look on her face. "Hey that was a joke, a really bad joke." He reaches forward, grabbing her cheek. "I'm not going to die."

"I know, it's not that…well, of course I'm worried about you dying." Dean smiles. "I'm worried about everyone dying, not that you're going to die, not that anyone's going to die…" His smile fades just a bit as she keeps rambling, Chloe's not a rambler. She stops at the look on his face and takes a deep breath. "It's just…May 2nd is the day Jimmy died."

Dean thinks for a minute. "In 2008?" Chloe nods. "I died the same day as your ex-husband?"

"Apparently." Chloe leans back in her chair.

"This doesn't surprise you?" Dean asks her.

"Nothing surprises me anymore," Chloe tells him sadly.

Dean takes a deep breath. "So I heard someone mention a plan."

"Right." Chloe stretches out her legs and stands. "You're probably not gonna like this."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 1, 2012**  
**1:00 a.m.**

Chloe slowly turns the knob of the cabin door and eases it open as quietly as she can. The moon's out but its faint so her visibility is only about 10%. All of the cabins are the same though so she doesn't even really need to see. She steps inside and closes the door behind her then takes two steps to her right and five steps forward. Halfway through the fifth step her leg slams into the metal post of the bed frame's foot board. She freezes, not crying out in pain, not even daring to breathe and counts to thirty. When nothing happens she edges her way around the bed, toward the headboard. She grabs the edge of the blanket and throws it back but the bed is empty.

Someone grabs her wrist and spins her around. Instinctively she kicks out, sweeping her mystery assailant's legs out from under them, but their grip on her wrist doesn't loosen and she's pulled down to the floor on top of them, throwing her off guard. Her opponent uses that against her, rolling them over and straddling her hips, holding both of her wrists firmly above her head. "I should have known." Chloe pants out. "It was too quiet. No snoring. How'd you know I was here?"

"The third step squeaks." Oliver pants and squints at her in the darkness. "Chloe?" He leans back a little, loosening his grip slightly on her wrists but doesn't let go.

"Hey." She smiles up at him sheepishly. "I need a favor."

"Does this favor involve me putting on a pair of pants?" Oliver raises his eyebrows.

Chloe looks down the length of his body and smiles. "It requires it actually."

"Pity." Oliver releases her wrists and stands up, pulling her to her feet. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness so neither of them bother to turn a light on. He looks around the floor of the cabin until he sees his pants and starts to pull them on. "So this favor? Am I going to like it?"

"Probably not." Chloe shakes her head. "I need to borrow your bike."

"You need to borrow my bike?" He glances at her over his shoulder. "For what exactly?"

"I want to go sightseeing along the coast." Chloe glares at him and even though he can't see it, he can sort of sense it. "I need to go somewhere and I need to get there fast. Considering the conditions of the roads the only way to do that these days is either with a tank, which I don't have available to me at the moment, or a bike."

"Does it have to be my bike?" Oliver sits and pulls on his boots, a small pout on his face.

"I can make this an order and not a request if you're gonna be a hard ass about it," Chloe points out.

"It's really the only thing I have left in this world," Oliver reminds her. Chloe softens a bit and he sits on the bed, reaching under the frame for a second before coming back out with a set of keys. He holds them out to her and when Chloe reaches out her hand he yanks his away, clutching the keys tightly. "Promise me you'll be careful."

"For God's sake Oliver, I'm not planning on going on some cross country high speed shoot out. I'm just going to talk to someone, _talk_." Chloe snaps at him but he is not moved. "I swear I will be very careful with your baby."

"Thank you." Oliver smiles sweetly at her.

"Man we've got to get you laid," Chloe mumbles under her breath and they both freeze remembering what happened between the two of them not twelve hours earlier. "I didn't—I want to thank you, for stopping me earlier."

"No problem," Oliver assures her then takes a deep breath and changes the subject. "Hey you need some back up?" Chloe raises her eyebrows feigning confusion. "Oh come on Chloe, you and I both know this isn't a social visit."

"You're right, it's not," Chloe admits to him. "But Dean's going to come with me, so I'm covered."

"Oh." Oliver nods. "So then you two talked? Kissed and made up?"

"We did. It was…good." Chloe smiles, a soft fond look on her face.

"Good." Oliver nods. "So then, I guess I'll get back to sleep." He motions to the bed behind him.

"Actually, I've got a job for you," Chloe says, all business now. "I need you to take the truck and go to Poughkeepsie."

"You need me to go to Poughkeepsie?" Oliver frowns. "What's in…oh. Zod?" he asks, remembering the storage shed full of kryptonite weapons.

"Unfortunately." Chloe nods.

"You want me to bring them back here?" Oliver grabs a jacket and pulls it on.

Chloe shakes her head. "No, I just need you to bring them to St. Mary's in Maryland, Oracle will send the directions to your phone. It's an old convent, just stash them there anywhere." She pauses. "Wait, not the chapel." Oliver nods his affirmative. "Stash them anywhere but the chapel, then come back here."

"Sure, can I bring Vic with me?" Oliver asks.

"Victor and Bart if you want, oh and Bruce too, he just got back from Atlanta, but no one else. I need you to keep this quiet."

"I understand." Oliver nods and they both head out the door.

"So, keys?" Chloe asks, holding out her hand.

"Wait, I've got one condition," Oliver tells her.

"In what universe do you get to stipulate conditions?" Chloe scoffs, only lightly teasing.

"In the universe where you want to borrow my bike," Oliver reminds her. Chloe sighs and nods. "Don't let him drive it," Oliver says. "He's got you and I can deal with that, but I can't…just don't let him drive."

"Cross my heart," Chloe promises, using her forefinger to draw an X over her heart. He tosses her the keys and she gives him one last smile before turning to the left toward the armory where his bike is parked around back. Oliver veers off to the right, toward Victor's cabin but he can't help turning around and watching as Dean steps out of the shadows.

"Got your sword from Lucas." Dean offers aforementioned sword. "He was sleeping with it."

"He was not." Chloe laughs, swiping the sword from Dean. She pulls off her hoodie and straps it to her back then replaces the hoodie. "He was cleaning it for me."

"It was under his pillow." Dean smirks.

"It's a very important sword," Chloe reminds him.

"You need a jacket," he tells her after a second.

"I'm good." She shakes her head.

"It'll be cold," Dean says but she just glares at him. "Freeze, I don't care." Dean tosses the jacket over his shoulder. "Can I drive?" Dean holds out his hand and Chloe turns quickly, catching Oliver's eye and smiles, tossing the keys toward him.

Dean holds out his hand to catch them but Chloe snatches them out of the air, without even looking. She winks at Oliver and turns back to Dean. "No chance." She brushes past him and straddles the bike, yanking the helmet onto her head. Dean glares at the other helmet that Chloe is holding out to him and grudgingly puts it on. He climbs onto the bike behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist as she slips the bike into gear and takes off down the path out of the camp.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 1, 2012**  
**5:43 a.m.**

"I'm freakin' freezing." Chloe blows into her hands and rubs them together to warm them up. They're sitting on a rock wall outside a quaint, empty little cottage in Pleasant, Ohio, concealed from the road, but in a position so they can see if anyone's coming.

"I told you to bring a jacket." Dean looks over at her briefly, but turns back to watching the road. "But no, you didn't want to bring a jacket."

Chloe shoves her hands into the jacket of Dean's hoodie which is nowhere near warm enough. "It's the end of April, I didn't think it'd be this cold still."

"You didn't think it would be cold, riding at night, on a motorcycle? It snowed just last Tuesday." Dean quirks a smile, his own teeth chattering a little.

"I can kill you, you know." Chloe glares at him, thinking for a second. "With two fingers."

"You can't even _feel_ your fingers," Dean points out. "Whose house is this again?" He looks back over at little pink house. It seems normal enough with the flower boxes on the window and a goose on the front porch dressed up in a raincoat and hat.

"A waitress named Bethany." Chloe grabs the hood and pulls it over her head. "She works at this little diner just outside of town, great pie."

"And why are we here?"

"Cause I have a feeling she knows where Barbas is." Chloe stares at the entrance of the drive where a car is pulling in. "Come on." Chloe jumps down and pulls Dean with her. They walk around the rock wall and crouch down when the car comes to a stop in front of the house.

A familiar face steps out of the driver's side. "Who's that?" Dean whispers.

Chloe smiles, her hunch paying off. "Barbas," she tells him. "And that's Bethany." Chloe nods to the woman in a skirt that's far too short getting out of the passenger's side. She's a far cry from the sweet lady that served her pie almost a year ago. There isn't much light but there's enough to see that Bethany's eyes are completely black.

"How did you know she was possessed?" Dean asks.

"She didn't drink the coffee," Chloe tells him cryptically. Barbas walks over to her side of the vehicle and grabs Bethany around the waist, planting a very filthy kiss on her. Chloe turns her head away quickly. "Oh, that's…I didn't need to see that."

"Then you definitely don't want to see this," Dean tells her. Chloe turns back to the car in time to see Barbas pulling another girl bodily from the back seat. She's not much taller than Chloe, wearing a short jean skirt and a tight black tank top. He red hair is spilling out of the ponytail at the back of her head and falls into her eyes. She falls to the dirt driveway, scraping up her knees. Her arms are tied together and her mouth is taped shut. Chloe can see tear tracks on her cheeks.

"Shit." She was not expecting this. "Follow my lead," she says formulating a new plan on the fly and heading for the back door of the house, Dean on her tail.

Barbas grabs the redhead by her hair and yanks her to her feet, loops one arm around Bethany's waist and pulls both the women toward the house. They get to the porch and the redhead's knees slam into the bottom step, sending her sprawling but Barbas doesn't stop, he simply pulls harder, dragging her up the rest of the steps and through the door.

"What do you think?" Barbas asks, hauling the redhead to her feet. She whimpers through the tape on her mouth, another tear escaping and sliding down the dirt and grime on her cheek. "Should we play with her now?" Barbas pulls the woman closer by her pony tail, inhaling deeply, sniffing her hair before yanking her head back and exposing her throat and licking a swath along her pulse point. "Or should we just let her watch for a while."

"I think we should let her watch," Bethany says stepping closer, looking the girl up and down then smiling at Barbas. "Give her an idea of what she has to look forward to."

"I like the way you think." The three of them stumble through the house, bumping the redhead into walls and door frames before finally making it into the back bedroom. Barbas shoves the girl away from him hard and she collapses into a heap on the floor. As best as she can, the girl scrambles until her back hits the wall, she cowers there curling herself as small and tightly as she can.

Bethany takes another step closer to Barbas when she freezes, her face a mask of pain and confusion. Barbas frowns and looks down as the tip of a sword slowly pushes through Bethany's chest.

"Don't move." Chloe steps closer, looking at Barbas over Bethany's shoulder. "I just have to push a bit harder and…" She turns her head to look at Bethany and a small trickle of blood slides out of her the corner of her mouth as Chloe twists her wrist. Bethany grunts, her knees giving out as the demon inside her body dies with a flash of light.

"Not moving," Barbas assures Chloe and she pulls the sword out of Bethany, allowing the woman's body to slide to the ground.  
"You and I are going to have a little chat." Chloe lowers the sword to her side and shoves Barbas to the mattress then turns to look at the girl huddled into the corner. "Get her out of here."

"I'm not leaving." Dean shakes his head and eases off the tape off the girl's mouth before pulling her off the floor and shielding her from seeing the dead body.

"She doesn't need to see this." Chloe shakes her head implying, _You don't need to see this_. They might have kissed and made up and Dean might have said that he was okay with it, but that didn't mean Chloe needed him to see this.

Dean gets the message and though he has no intention of actually going anywhere, he meant what he said when he told Chloe he wanted all of her, he knows he needs to get the girl out of the house. "I'm coming back," Dean promises her and she just nods as he pulls the girl from the room.

"Trouble in paradise?" Barbas asks from the bed where he's now lounging against the headboard.

"Shut up." Chloe turns her attention back to the demon. Barbas opens his mouth and they hear the sound of breaking glass from the living room. "Don't move," Chloe tells him when she hears Dean cry, "Hey!" and then a very large crash.

"I'm not going anywhere," Barbas assures her.

"No." Chloe smiles and looks up at the ceiling then back down at Barbas. "You're not." Barbas looks up, losing his smile as he notices the very large, freshly painted devil's trap right over the bed. Chloe walks out of the room and Barbas looks to the side table, grabs the two-year-old People Magazine and flips it open.

Chloe steps into the hallway and the sounds of fighting have stopped. She raises the sword at her side and cautiously makes her way into the living room where Dean is digging himself out of a pile of rubble that Chloe thinks might have been a dining room set at one point in time. She rushes over, setting her sword on the kitchen counter and pulls Dean to his feet. "What the hell happened?"

"I don't know. I cut the tape on her wrists and told her to take the car and get to the nearest refugee camp and she went crazy, took my knife and shoved me away. I tried to grab her and she tossed me into the freakin' table." Dean reaches back and rubs his head, his fingers coming away with blood.

"Let me get this straight," Chloe barely suppresses her smile, "the girl who had been beaten, who could barely stand on her own two feet, got the drop on you then threw you into a dining room table?"

"She caught me by surprise, she's seriously freaked out, and she was stronger than she looked." Dean glares at Chloe as she drags him into the kitchen and turns on the faucet.

"Turn around." Chloe laughs, pressing a wet cloth to the back of his head and cleaning away the blood. "Superficial, you should be fine. Hold this on there though; head wounds have a tendency to bleed a lot."

"Thanks Doc." Dean replaces Chloe's hand with his own pressing the wet cloth to the wound. He ducks away from the slap he can feel coming and spins around, the smile on his face dying instantly. He drops the cloth and grabs Chloe's arm, yanking her toward him just as the redhead lunges, Dean's knife glinting in her hand.

Dean isn't fast enough though and the knife slides smoothly into the flesh of Chloe's right hip. The redhead pulls her arm up, slicing clean across Chloe's back all the way to her left shoulder blade. The pain surprises Chloe and she cries out, tearing her arm free from Dean's grasp and spinning around. Without thinking, she reaches up for the girl's wrist, misses by a few inches and her hand clenches around the blade of the knife. It bites into her skin but she doesn't let go, just grips it harder and pulls it out of the girl's grasp.

Dean uses the opportunity to slip around Chloe and behind the girl. He grabs her arms and holdsthem behind her back, easily subduing her. "Seriously?" Chloe pants, dropping Dean's knife to the ground and shaking her hand. Blood splatters on her shirt and neck, some of it even getting the girl in the face, she barely flinches. "We were trying to save you."

"Don't need saving." She smirks, letting her eyes flood black and struggling against Dean's hold. He's prepared for her this time and simply tightens his grip.

"But…" Chloe asks, really confused, she looks at the tape that's still hanging off of the woman's wrists.

"Haven't you ever heard of role playing?" She smirks. The woman's tongue snakes out of her mouth and she licks the drops of Chloe's blood off of her lips. "Mmm, tastes just as good as I remember."

Chloe's brow furrows. "Mara?" she asks and the woman just smiles. Chloe curses under her breath. "I haven't killed you yet?"  
Mara shakes her head, seriously considering the question. "No, I think I'd remember that."

"Right." Chloe nods slowly. "You're not really all there are you?" she asks, tapping her finger against her own temple.

Mara just smiles manically. "You know the first time I saw you, I didn't think you'd last a day in this war, but look at you now." Mara leans closer. "I still can't quite believe you're the one from prophecy. Are you really gonna do it? Are you really gonna kill God?" Her eyes mirror the excitement in her tone.

"I don't know." Chloe leans over and grabs her sword. The cut on her palm is still open and it stings when she grips the hilt but she doesn't let the pain show. "But I'm gonna kill you."

"Actually I've got a lot of work to do. We're preparing for an invasion you know." She winks at Chloe. "Another time perhaps?" She throws her head back and the back of her skull slams into the bridge of Dean's nose. Reflexively he releases his grip and Mara springs forward, knocking the sword from Chloe's grip and grabbing her by the collar of her sweatshirt. She lifts her into the air and tosses her over the kitchen counter and into the living room.

Chloe's injured back slams into the arm of the couch and she slides to the ground, slightly dazed. She tries to pull herself to her feet but her legs don't seem to be working for the moment. She sees Dean out of the corner of her eye, his newly retrieved knife clutched in his hands but before he can take a step toward Mara, she tilts her head back and black smoke pours from the woman's mouth and gathers into a large cloud at the ceiling before making its way out the door and into the night.

Dean brings his sleeve up to his nose and wipes the blood away as best as he can. He walks over to Chloe and holds out his hand. "Give me a second." She pants to him.

"You okay?"

"I can't feel my legs." She shakes her head. "It'll be okay, I just need a second." She grits her teeth and breathes in and out a few times before reaching for Dean's outstretched hand. It takes her a few false starts but she finds her feet. She walks over to the kitchen and picks up her sword, her breathing extremely heavy, her muscles stiff and her vision slightly blurry.

She ignores Dean and heads back to the bedroom. Barbas sits up in the bed and tosses the People magazine to the side. "I miss Brad and Angelina," Barbas tells her, pointedly ignoring her current state. "I guess they're probably dead now. It's a shame. I'm starting to wonder if I even want to live in a world that no longer requires celebrity gossip magazines. I might be interested in switching sides. Tell me, if your side wins do you plan on falling back on that wonderful human dependence on reality television, after you rebuild the government of course." Barbas looks over Chloe's shoulder at Dean whose lounging against the door frame. "I just can't get enough of Big Brother."

"Shut up," Chloe growls at him, climbing up on the bed. Barbas makes an attempt to push himself up but Chloe shoves him right back down, straddling his hips and bringing the blade of the sword to his throat.

"I'm telling you I want to defect and this is how you treat me?" Barbas smirks.

"You're not going to defect." Chloe snorts.

"You don't know that," Barbas bristles at her.

"First of all," Chloe says tonelessly. "We don't want you."

"Of course you do." Barbas smiles at her. "I have inside information and you need me." Chloe doesn't look impressed. "Look, all kidding aside, I know how he runs things. I mean you humans are pretty screwed up but…there's a reason they call it Hell and whether it's up here or down there, it's the same thing and it took me almost a hundred years to pull myself out of that pit, I'm not going back. Now you can win this thing but you need me."

"You're right, I do need you." Chloe smiles at him. "I've got a job for you to do."

"Well that's perfect." Barbas smiles. "I can do that, it'll be like I'm a double agent, I always thought I'd be a good double agent-"

"Shut up." Chloe presses the sword tighter against his skin. "You're going to listen now." He swallows carefully, his Adam's apple scrapping along the blade of the sword. "You're going to get a message to your boss for me and you're going to get him this message before midnight or so help me God I will hunt your ass down and make you wish I'd have just slit your throat right here, right now."

"Get him a message, I can do that," Barbas assures her.

"You're going to tell him that I'm taking option number one. Can you remember that?"

"Hold on, I may have to write it down." Barbas sneers and Chloe slides the sword slightly to the left, drawing blood. "You're taking option number one," he clarifies.

"Tell him I'll meet him at St. Mary's tomorrow at noon," Chloe says. "And tell him that if I see him before that, the deal is off. Tell him that if he or anyone of his little minions sets foot in my town, hell in my_ state_ before then, the deal is off."

"Got it," Barbas tells her. "Don't worry." They stare at each other for a second and Barbas looks up. "A little help please."

Chloe glances up at the devil's trap. She pulls herself to her feet and thrusts the sword into the ceiling. Plaster and dust rain down and the crack cuts through the markings, breaking the trap. Barbas offers her a sly wink then throws his head back and leaves his body.

Chloe drops the sword to the bed and then collapses onto the mattress beside it. Dean moves to step into the room but freezes when he hears a sickening gurgle coming from the body on the bed next to her. Chloe obviously heard it too because her head snaps around so quickly, he can practically hear her neck crack. "Help me," the man whispers.

Chloe moves carefully across the bed and stops next to the man's head, his eyes are open wide, darting back and forth, terrified.

"Help me, please," he pleads with her.

Chloe looks over at Dean confused. "How is he alive?" she asks. "Barbas has been using this body for…years."

"He did it on purpose." The man coughs bringing Chloe's attention back to him. "He was careful. He wanted me alive. He wanted me to suffer."

"Call Jo, get Clark up here now," Chloe says to Dean who reaches for his radio. "We've got a doctor, a damn good one, we can get you to him in less than a minute."

"No." The man reaches out and grabs Chloe's hand, his grip is weak put insistent. "No, I don't want a doctor," he wheezes. "I watched as he killed my wife and children. I watched as he did so many things." Tears fall from the man's eyes. "I could see everything, I know what's going on out there and I don't want to—"

"What's your name?" Chloe asks, attempting to distract him.

"Kevin. Kevin Reynolds."

"I'm Chloe," Chloe tells him. "Chloe Sullivan."

"I know. I know who you are. You're supposed to be one of the good guys so please, just, help me." He cuts his gaze to the sword lying forgotten by his head and Chloe's stomach turns.

"Okay," she whispers and looks up at Dean who nods, putting the radio down. "I'll help you." Chloe pulls his hand from her wrist and lays it on his stomach. She brings up her uninjured hand and covers the man's mouth, holding his nose closed with her thumb and forefinger.

Kevin's eyes bug out and though he'd begged her for death not twenty seconds ago, his human instincts kick in and he starts thrashing against her, fighting for breath. Chloe climbs back on top of him, trapping his hips between her knees, laying her injured hand on his chest, holding him still while she keeps her other hand firmly clasped over his mouth. Gradually the thrashing slows and the man's eyes begin to droop until finally he stills and his eyes close completely, his head falling to the side.

Chloe yanks her hand away as if he's burned her and scrambles to get off the bed. She stands and stares at the man's body for a second, attempting to get her breathing under control. She looks up and catches Dean's eye, unable to look away, unable to stop even knowing that he's just watched her kill a man. In her heart she knows it was a mercy killing, no better or worse than killing someone who'd gotten infected but something about it felt worse. Dean doesn't look away either, he holds her gaze, letting her know that he gets it, that he's still there until finally she breaks the gaze.

She steps over Bethany's body and brushes past Dean and down the hallway. He stays in the room for a minute before going after her. He finds her in the kitchen and watches as she carefully pulls the hoodie away from her back and lifts it over her head, wincing at the movement. She examines it for a minute, the blood can't be washed out but it's not like she doesn't have a wardrobe full of bloodstained clothes, it's the 12 inch gash that runs diagonally from the right shoulder to the left hip that renders the garment basically useless. She tosses it absentmindedly over her shoulder to the floor. The sheath comes off next, pulling away from her body easily where the leather strap has been sliced clean through, at this she does look slightly upset and sets it gently on the counter beside her before she works on pulling the t-shirt over her head. An identical gash causes it to have the same fate as the sweatshirt and then her bra is dropped to the ground, the straps having been sliced clean through.

Dean turns around and walks back into the bedroom. He ignores the bodies and makes his way to the closet. He glances back at Bethany and sizes her up, she's taller than Chloe but they're built relatively the same so he chooses a shirt, grabs her sword from the bed and walks back to the kitchen.

Chloe's knuckles are white, curled around the edge of the sink as she leans against the counter, her head is bowed and her breath is coming fast and her body is so tense it's painful for him to look at. The feeling that he's intruding on something private suddenly hits him and he starts to take a step out of the room when the moment passes. Chloe releases the sink and grabs a washcloth, running it under the water and then wiping the blood off of her face and hands. She strains painfully to try and clean the cut on her back and Dean finds himself stepping forward.

"Let me," he says. She doesn't even turn to look at him, simply holds the wet cloth out and he plucks it from her fingers. He brushes the hair off of her neck and she gets the hint, pulling it up and holding it out of his way as he wipes down the edges of the cut. He takes this opportunity to examine the wound more closely. It's deep, real deep, almost too deep, at one point he's sure he can see her spinal cord but it's hardly bleeding anymore and she's still standing and even as he presses deep to clean it and she doesn't cry out, she doesn't flinch at all.

"It'll heal soon," Chloe tells him as she wraps another rag around her hand.

Dean nods because what do you say to that? What do you say to someone who heals life threatening wounds in the time it takes to inflict them? Even as he wipes the washcloth down her back he can see the muscles under her skin knitting themselves back together and he shudders. "Does it hurt?" he asks because he's wondering if she can feel anything anymore.

"A little," she admits and that makes him feel better, but only slightly.

He steps away when he finishes and drops the rag on the counter, handing her the clean shirt. She takes it slowly and smiles at him over her shoulder. "Thanks." The word is hard for her to say after months of doing everything for herself and a part of him knows that she allowed him to do that to make himself fell better, feel useful, and not because she needs his help.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks her.

"No," she answers him truthfully pulling on the shirt. At least she's being honest.

"Then don't do it." He's practically pleading with her and he knows he sounds petulant, like a spoiled child.

"I have to," she says simply, not calling him on it.

"Because Chuck wrote that you did?" Dean snaps and she turns around to face him. "What happened to, 'There's no such thing as destiny' and 'we make our own fate'?"

"I still believe that," Chloe offers him a sad, slightly resigned smile, "but sometimes you just have to do something; sometimes it's the only way."

"There's always a choice," Dean echoes her own words back to her and she nods.

"And I chose this," she assures him. "The lesser of two evils."

When she says that his blood freezes solid in his veins and he stares at her for a second. "This could turn out worse?"

"So much worse." She nods, letting on more than she's comfortable with that slip. "I know it's hard but you have to trust me. Do you trust me Dean?"

"I do. You know I do," Dean says handing Chloe her sword.

Chloe bends down and picks up the ruined sweatshirt, using it to clean the blood off her sword before sliding it back into the sheath and then heading to the door to leave.

"Chloe," Dean calls after her and he's not sure why. She turns and looks at him questioningly. He has a million things he wants to say to her, to ask her, _What_ _if this doesn't work? What if it does? Will we survive this? I love you_. He says none of those things, he asks her no questions, and instead he slides on his patented Dean Winchester smile. "It's gonna get cold out there."

She smiles back at him, knowing that's not why he stopped her, and looks around the room. Her eyes fall to a slick leather jacket draped across a chair and she scoops it up, sliding it over her shirt without a second thought to the fact that she just slaughtered the woman who had previously owned the garment.

"Can I drive back?" Dean asks jogging to catch up to her. She just laughs and tosses him the sword.

"No but you can hold onto that for me." She winks and straddles the bike while Dean grudgingly stuffs the sheath into the front of his jacket.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 1, 2012**  
**12:15 p.m.**

When they get back to camp it's obvious that their absence has been noticed. Lois and Jo are waiting very impatiently as Chloe parks the bike and climbs off, a list of things on the tip of her tongue already for Jo but Lois interrupts her. "Oliver left last night," she says offering a pointed glare at Chloe, remembering the last time Oliver left the camp, hoping for all their sakes that he and Chloe didn't get into yet another fight.

"I know," Chloe says slowly. "I sent him on an errand." Lois visibly relaxes and Chloe heads toward the cabin.

Jo runs to catch up to her. "He took Victor, Bart, Bruce and the largest truck with him. He notified me before he left but he didn't tell me where he was going or why." Jo sounds very put off by this.

"He wasn't supposed to," Chloe assures her and that seems to make Jo even angrier, she scowls. "You'll know when you need to know, Sidekick."

"Yes ma'am," Jo catches herself.

"Let me know the second he gets back," Chloe tells her. "If that means you have to stand up at the gate and wait for him—"

"Then I'll stand at the gate and wait." Jo assures Chloe.

"I'm not expecting him to be back before tonight, so in the mean time I want Castiel in my cabin A.S.A.P. And take this to Lucas, see what he can do with it." Chloe says taking her sword from Dean and pulling it free from the ruined sheath before handing the sheath to Jo. She nods and walks away quickly.

Lois opens her mouth and Chloe turns around. "I swear to God Lois, you'll know when you need to know," she reiterates and Lois' mouth snaps shut.

"I was just going to ask if I could do anything to help?" Lois asks throwing her hands in the air.

"You know what you can do? I'm starving."

"I've got the key to the pantry." Lois walks off toward the Mess with a smile.

Chloe sets her sword down and tears off the leather jacket the second she steps into the cabin and tosses it over her chair. The borrowed shirt is off of her head soon after and she strains to check the progress of her wound. "How's it look?" Chloe asks digging through her drawers.

"Starting to scab." Dean reaches out a hand, his fingers grazing over the puffy, angry edges of the cut. Chloe discards the bra in her hands, not wanting to irritate the injury any further and pulls on a fresh clean shirt. "How's the hand?"

"Sore." Chloe holds it out and Dean unravels the bloody cloth.

"Practically scared already," he mumbles, tracing the line of her palm with a fingertip. The gentle touch sends a shock through Chloe, reminding her that it's been too long since Dean touched her like that. She looks up catching his eye and if the look he's giving her is any indication he feels the same way.

"We don't have time," she whispers sadly and he drops her hand and steps back.

"What happened?" Castiel asks from the doorway and for a moment Chloe thinks he means between her and Dean but then she sees his gaze is on the bloody cloth in Dean's hand and the scar on Chloe's palm.

"Nothing." Chloe brushes him off, pulling her hair up on topof her head and securing it with a rubber band. "Chuck had a dream."

"How bad?" Castiel asks.

"Bad. End game bad," Chloe tells him.

"What can I do?"

"You and I are going to go have a chat with our mutual enemy," Chloe says.

"Which one?" Castiel offers her a small smile. "There are so many."

Chloe smirks. "Zachariah." Both Dean and Castiel's eyebrows rise at this.

"You want to bring a gun to a knife fight," Dean says catching on to her game. If you bring demons to fight angels, then it stands to reason you bring angels to fight demons.

"I want to try at least." Chloe shrugs.

"It's a good plan," Castiel says slowly. "If we knew where they were."

"I think I can help you with that," Lt. Col. Archer says from behind them. They turn around to see him standing by the computer, a file in his hands.

"How long have you been here?" Chloe asks.

"Long enough. Pretty nasty cut on your back there." Archer smiles at her.

Chloe resists the urge to blush wondering just how much of her he saw. "What do you have?"

"Finally managed to get a report out of the spooks in New York." He tosses the file to her. "And I think I know why the Croats are concentrating in that particular area."

Chloe opens the file and pulls out a stack of black and white photos, all of the same city block, all featuring the same group of people. "That's Raphael." Chloe passes the picture off to Dean. "Zachariah…" She sees more familiar faces from that day at the Watchtower and then again in Vegas.

"There's a ten block buffer zone, completely free of Croats radiating from this apartment building," Archer says pulling up a map on the computer andtappingon one of the buildings. "But right here." He taps a building eleven blocks away from the first one. "Is what the spooks think is the Croat's headquarters."

"The Croats set up shop in New York because the angels did it first." Chloe smiles.

"But why?" Lois asks from the doorway, a loaf of bread and some meats and cheeses her hand which she dumps on the table.

"Because they want to know what the angels are up to. Think about it, they go to ground after Vegas, then they show up in New York City. Wouldn't you know what they were up to, what they were planning?" Chloe grabs the bread and tears off a piece.

"They aren't planning anything," Dean says. "They're hiding out, licking their wounds."

"But the Croats don't know that," Chloe points out, taking a bite of bread. "And they can't take the chance."

"OK, so what does that mean?" Lois asks.

"It means we're going to New York." Chloe looks over at Castiel grabs the leather jacket, sliding it on, then picks up her sword.

"Now?" Dean asks her.

"I'm on a very strict timeline here," Chloe reminds him grabbing another chunk of bread and a hunk of cheese and stuffing it into her pocket. "I need you to get in touch with the President and coordinate with all our people in the field, we're going to need as much fire power as we can get so we're calling in everyone." Chloe walks over to the large map on the wall and points to a spot just outside of Illchester, Maryland. "This is the rendezvous point. Tell them to be as inconspicuous as possible."

"Everyone?" Archer asks concerned and Chloe stops.

"Refugee camps and Red Cross centers can leave behind skeleton crews to keep things running and for protection," Chloe amends. "And anyone who's too far out to make it in there for noon shouldn't bother. They should stay where they are and hold down the fort," Chloe says. "If something happens, and this doesn't work, we're gonna need to have someone out there to pick up the pieces."

No one says anything, this is the first mention that the plan might not actually work. "Come on." Chloe snaps her fingers at Castiel, breaking the tension. "Time to work what's left of that angel magic."

He smiles, takes her hand, and then they're gone.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 1, 2012**  
**1:00 p.m.**

Chloe and Castiel crash through the front door of the apartment building and slam their backs against it as it's pounded from the outside by the mob of Croats. "Twenty blocks away." Chloe turns to him panting. She uses the hand not holding onto her sword to swipe at the blood threatening to drip into her eye from the cut on her forehead. "That's the closest you could get us." She tries to make a joke about it but it actually does worry her a bit, just one more thing to remind her that he's not the all powerful angel he used to be, then she pauses and smiles because that means that neither is Raphael or Zachariah.

"I already apologized," Castiel says through gritted teeth. "Almost a hundred times." The door pushes against them.

"I could do with a hundred and one right now." Chloe grunts as the door flings open, shoving them across the lobby of the building.

"Sorry," Castiel says grabbing her free hand and pulling her toward the stairs as a group of Croats barrel after them. "Although, to be perfectly honest." Castiel looks behind him at the Croats then at Chloe. "This is the most fun I've had in a while."

"Me too." Chloe pants. She hasn't really had a chance to get out in the field in a long time.

"So why are we running?" he argues with a small smile.

"I don't know." Chloe smiles. They freeze on the steps between the third and fourth floor and turn around then run at the Croats.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 1, 2012**  
**4:18 p.m.**

"Jo can you give me a status report?" Dean calls into his radio and he can practically hear Jo rolling her eyes all the way from the front gate.

"Status is the same as it was two minutes ago, and the two minutes before that, and the two before that," Jo snaps. "No sign of Oliver or Chloe."

Dean resists the urge to snap back at her because he's managed to go an entire day without having his foot trampled on and he'd like to keep it that way. "Thank you," he says instead and drops the radio to the table. Chloe and Castiel had left almost five hours ago and Dean is starting to get worried. They hadn't taken a radio with them and Chloe's cell phone is sitting on the bedside table where she'd put it the night before. He'd gotten in touch with Knowles who assured him that neither Chloe nor Castiel had bothered to check in with him upon their arrival but he would send a few scouts out to see what they could find and get back to Dean. That had been over two hours ago and he hadn't heard anything.

He and Archer had already coordinated with the President and her men, they'd gotten the word out to everyone they could reach to pack up and head to Maryland. Dean doesn't know who got the message, how many people are coming and how many of them are actually going to make it but it's out of his hands now.

He's contemplating giving them another thirty minutes before he rounds up Sam and Clark and takes his own little trip to New York, when suddenly Chloe and Castiel are standing in the middle of the room. "Finally." Chloe looks around at her surroundings then over at Castiel. "And it only took you like five tries to get us here."

"Where have you been?" Dean asks, taking in her disheveled appearance and the caked on dried blood all over her face.

"We had to—shit," Chloe curses as she takes a step toward Dean and trips over her own two feet, crashing into the table and falling to the ground. "Ow. Son of a bitch, that hurt," Chloe says through gritted teeth as Dean pulls her up to her feet. She's clutching her left arm with her right. "I keep forgetting that it's broken."

"You broke your arm?" Dean asks and Chloe nods, breathing in and out through her nose in an attempt to control the pain.

"Actually we should probably set it before it heals all wonky," Chloe says then laughs and turns to Castiel. "Wonky, that's a funny word."

"Wonky," Castiel tries it out and he too laughs. "It is, wonky wonky wonky wonky wonky…if you say it enough it doesn't even sound like English anymore."

Dean looks between the two of them and then spies something behind Chloe's ear. He reaches slowly toward her and pulls a small paper umbrella out. "Are you two drunk?" he asks them. They both attempt serious sober faces for all of one second before dissolving into laughter.

"Yes, we are," Chloe says somberly.

"You honestly thought today of all days would be the best time to go on a bender?" Dean sits Chloe down in a chair.

"Well yeah, actually." Castiel stumbles over to the table and sits down next to Chloe. "Considering there might not be anymore today's after tomorrow." He frowns then looks at Chloe. "That made sense right?"

"Totally," Chloe assures him while shaking her head no.

"Oh God." Dean buries his head in his hands and walks over to the radio. He tells Jo that he's got Chloe and Castiel but to keep him updated with Oliver's ETA. Then he calls Emil and asks him to come to Chloe's cabin to set her broken arm.

Emil sets her arm as best as he can under the circumstances. He attempts to have Chloe put it in a sling but she brushes him off, insisting that she doesn't need it. He leaves soon after, but not before offering Dean a very loaded glare at the state she's in. Dean glares right back, not about to take the blame for this one. He's not the one that got her drunk and he's certainly not the one who broke her arm, no, that blame lies with the inebriated angel at her side.

He watches them for just a second, still amazed at the strange dynamic between the two of them even after all this time. Castiel had gotten up and retrieved a wet rag and he's attempting to clean the blood off Chloe, the wounds that it came from already long since healed. He has a look of intense concentration on his face. "I'm sorry I broke your arm," he says to her quietly.

"No worries," Chloe assures him lifting said arm above her head. "Practically healed already." He offers her a small smile and moves from her temple to her cheek. "Hey." Chloe says after a second, reaching up and grabbing his wrist when he doesn't stop and look at her. "Remember a long time ago, you said you'd always follow me?" Castiel nods once. "Did you mean it?" Chloe asks him.

"Yes," Castiel tells her.

"Even if—" Chloe's voice catches in her throat and Castiel pulls away to look at her better. "Never mind."

"I said that I would always follow you." Castiel resumes wiping off her face. "And I will."

"Okay." Chloe swallows. "Good."

He cleans off the rest of the blood in silence and when he's finished Chloe takes a deep breath. "I think I need to go talk to the rest of the camp." She makes a move to stand up and wobbles slightly, still unsteady on her own two feet. Castiel reaches out and grabs her, keeping her upright. "And I think I need to be sober for that."

Castiel smiles and places a finger to her forehead. She wobbles again and grips his arms tighter, blinking rapidly for a few seconds before looking up to stare at him. "That was the strangest sensation in the world. How did you do that?"

"I've still got a little bit of the angel magic left," Castiel reminds her.

"Could you get the word out? I want everyone in the Archery Range in twenty minutes," Chloe asks him and he nods walking out of the cabin.

"How'd it go?" Dean asks her after Castiel is gone.

"They'll show," Chloe assures him.

"They said that?" Dean raises his eyebrows.

"Not in so many words." Chloe shakes her head no. "But they'll show."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I've got faith," Chloe says.

Dean wants to ask her since when but he's interrupted when the radio on his hip comes to life.

_"Oliver's at the gate,"_ Jo relays. _"Riding into camp now." _

Chloe grabs the radio from Dean. "Roger that. Rendezvous at the Archery Range."

"Are we ready for this?" Dean asks her.

"No." Chloe lets out a breath and shakes her head. "But it's too late to back out now."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 1, 2012**  
**4:39 p.m.**

Chloe stares at the group assembled in front of her as she climbs the steps of the Mess. Most everyone's there, a few people are trickling in from different areas of the camp, all of them looking to her curiously. She sees the truck pull up into the camp proper. Oliver doesn't bother parking it, just stops at the entrance and jumps down. He looks around for Chloe smiling when he sees her and nods just once to let her know it's done.

She nods back and takes a step forward. "I know there's been rumors around camp about a battle. The end all- be all battle to this war. The rumors are true. Tomorrow." It's all she says and somehow it's all she needs to say. "We'll leave at 0700. Whoever wants to fight, can fight, and whoever wants to stay behind…well no one's going to judge you," Chloe assures them. "Take the rest of the night, spend it with your friends, your family and in the morning, we end this, one way or the other."

The crowd just stares at her for a second and she turns and walks away as they erupt in a low frenzied murmur. Chloe doesn't get very far before she sees Lois blocking her path. "I'm coming," Lois tells her. "Tomorrow. I'm coming tomorrow. Clark will probably try to stop me but no way I'm sitting this one out." Chloe opens her mouth to protest and Lois holds up a hand. "My eyes are wide open, Chloe and you know as well as I do that long before any of this happened, if you'd have asked me to follow you into battle I would have and nothing's changed."

Chloe (She) refuses to let herself cry, refuses to let Lois see the tears that are threatening to fall. She'd been so worried that she'd changed too much, that she and Lois had grown too far apart but now Chloe realizes that they're family and that's never going to change. Chances are if Lois goes, Lois dies but Chloe isn't going to be the one to tell her that she can't do it, that she can't fight for her life, for her world. And truth is, she's comforted by the thought that Lois is going to be there with her. Her fearless, stubborn, punch life in the face, older cousin. "Lucy stays here," Chloe says after a second.

"Of course, that's not even up for discussion," Lois scoffs. "So our last night on earth and I've got the keys to the pantry..." she says letting it hang in the air as she starts to head up the steps to the Mess.

"We're leaving at 0700, Lois…just remember that," Chloe calls after her. "That girl will use any excuse to party," she says softly and shakes her head.

"Says the girl who was falling down drunk thirty minutes ago." Dean laughs from over her shoulder. "As excuses go, it is a pretty good one, last night on earth and all."

"Do you have plans?" Chloe turns around and asks him.

"There are a few things that I wouldn't mind doing to fill up my last remaining hours." He wiggles his eyebrows and Chloe laughs. "But if it's alright with you, I'd like to spend a few of those with my brother."

"Of course," Chloe assures him. "God, go." She practically pushes him away. "I've gotta see Bobby anyway."

"Come find me when you're done." Dean leans down and kisses her softly.

"I will." She smiles at him.

"Oh." He turns around and tosses something to her. "Oliver asked me to give you this." Chloe holds out her hands and catches a small lead box, the size of a ring box. She turns it in her hands for a moment then slips it in her pocket.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 1, 2012**  
**5:02 p.m.**

Chloe walks across the camp, taking it all in with the understanding that this is likely the last time she'll ever see this place and it startles her how much this camp has become her home. She's lived here longer than she lived in the Watchtower and she built this place, pieces of it with her own two hands.

Bobby jumps on her ass the second she opens the armory door. "You couldn't give me a bit more warning?" he snaps at her. "I've only got," he checks his watch, "eight hours to get enough weapons together for the end of the world?"

"Please, Lucas has this place running like clockwork. It'll take you two hours at the most and you'll spend the rest of the night at Lois' _End of the World_ party." Chloe brushes him off and backs out of the doorway. She stops herself and pokes her head back in. "Speaking of Lucas, he's staying here." Chloe doesn't have to explain what she means Bobby just gets it.

"Of course he is." Bobby brushes her off. "I'm not an idiot." Chloe smiles and walks away. She checks in with Martha, makes sure that they've got enough supplies to last for a little while for the ones staying behind.

She checks in with Emil who is once again amazed at the fact that her arm is practically completely healed. On her way out, she gathers a few supplies. He raises an eyebrow at her as she stuffs a length of intubation tubing and an empty IV bag in her pocket but he asks her no questions. She drops them off to Castiel who stares at them and smiles. "You know what to do?" she asks and he nods once before getting to work.

She pokes her head into the chapel to find the line for Father Mac's confessional practically out the door. Then she finds herself walking a well worn path through the trees and around the lake until she emerges into a clearing. "Now how did I know I'd find you out here?" Chloe slips her hands into her jacket pockets and steps forward to the figure a few feet in front of her. "Your girlfriend is back there literally throwing the party to end all parties and I find you on the farm."

Clark turns around and offers her a smile.

"I'm gonna miss this place." Chloe takes a deep breath. "Is that weird?"

Clark looks down at her and laughs. "It's a little weird," he admits.

"I got something for you." She digs the lead box out of her pocket and passes it over to him.

Clark looks at it for a second then back over at Chloe. "Are you proposing to me Chloe?" Clark nudges her shoulder. "I mean I know you used to have this massive crush on me but I thought we were over that. I'm with Lois now. Besides, what would Dean say?"

"Open the box." Chloe rolls her eyes at him and Clark does as he's told.

"I thought this was destroyed." Clark pulls out a silver ring with a thick band of blue kryptonite crystal set in the middle. It looks like his father's Victory Ring.

"It was," Chloe admits. "I had it recreated."

"Why?" Clark puts the ring back in the box and closes the lid, he hates the feeling of powerlessness it brings him.

"We thought you might need it someday," Chloe tells him. "In case we ever had to fight someone else with a weakness to kryptonite, we wanted to make sure you were spared."

"Someone else with a weakness to kryptonite?" Clark raises his eyebrows.

"We need to talk about Zod," Chloe tells him.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 1, 2012**  
**6:53 p.m.**

Chloe walks back to the camp alone. Clark hadn't been happy about Chloe's plan but he agreed to go along with it. She hears music coming from the Mess, a very off key rendition of _I Will Survive_. Chloe walks up the steps and stands in the door frame. Lois has somehow taken the pieces of Oracle's system they brought into the Mess when Croatoan broke out and has turned it into a karaoke machine. Lois and Jo are on stage at the moment belting out Aretha Franklin with no shame.

"Chloe." Victor catches her attention and she looks over to where he's sitting at a table with Bart and a couple other people. "Tell Archer what happened in Paris, he doesn't believe me."

Chloe pushes herself off the door frame and walks over to the table. A few of the hunters move to make room for her and she sits down. Someone else puts a beer in her hand and she doesn't even bother to wonder where it came from. "Which time? The time AC fell off the Eiffel tower or the time Oliver and I crashed the State dinner and Oliver somehow managed to convinced President Sarkozy that he was Louis of Bourbon."

"Who is that?" Archer asks her.

"The Prince of France," Victor clarifies.

"OK, now I have to hear both of those stories because I don't believe either one of them," Archer tells her.

"It's true." Bart says. "They were so convincing they got an invite from the First Lady herself to spend Christmas at the Elysee Palace." Bart turns to her. "Did you guys end up going?"

Chloe takes a long sip of her beer and offers them a sly smile. "That's a whole other story."

"This _I've_ got to hear." Victor leans forward.

Six hours later their table is littered with empty beer bottles, the Karaoke machine has long since been turned off and the crowd in the Mess has thinned considerably. Her table consists of Bart, Victor, Lois, Clark, Lucy, and Jo. Chloe's laughing so hard at a story that she's heard Bart tell a thousand times before but has never been any funnier. She looks up and sees Chuck in the doorframe, looks down at her watch and curses. She stands up and finishes the rest of her beer before setting the empty bottle on the table. "I'm out you guys." They all protest and she doesn't want to leave, she hasn't spent this much time with the others in a while. "I'm exhausted and we've got a big day tomorrow," Chloe reminds them.

She walks out into the cool night air and takes in a deep breath. "What's up?"

"Zod left camp about twenty minutes ago," Chuck tells her.

"Surprisingly punctual for a back stabbing son of a bitch." Chloe laughs bitterly. "I guess everything's happening just like it's supposed to."

"I guess." Chuck nods.

"Nothing left to do but sit back and enjoy the ride then." Chloe smiles over at him. "Go, have a beer, find your girlfriend." Chuck nods and walks toward the Mess. "Hey, do you know where Dean is?"

"Your cabin last time I checked," Chuck calls out to her.

"Thanks." Chloe jogs over to her cabin and takes the steps two at a time. When she steps inside she's not prepared for the barrage of smoke that hits her in the face. She coughs for a second before walking through it to the table in the middle of the room. "Hey, what's going on?" Oliver, Dean, Ellen, Bruce, Alfred and Sam are all sitting around her table, smoking cigars, drinking scotch and apparently playing poker.

"Your boyfriend's bankrupting me." Bruce throws his cards onto the table and shakes his head. "That's what's going on here."

Chloe walks up behind Dean and smiles at the substantially large pile of chips that are in front of him, larger than anyone else's pile. She glances down at his cards and he has absolutely nothing. "Nice." She leans down and kisses his forehead. "I'm exhausted, I'm gonna head to bed."

"I'll be in soon, a few more hands and if the world doesn't end tomorrow, I'm going to own a controlling share in Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries." Dean smirks and Chloe laughs.

"He's not kidding." Oliver shakes his head. "In three hours he's taken more of my money that you have in three years."

"Now I'm definitely making sure the world doesn't end tomorrow, cause I'd finally get to show Oliver how awesome a rich person I would be." Chloe smiles and walks into her room, shutting the door behind her.

Chloe doesn't remember getting into bed. She doesn't remember falling asleep, but at one point she feels the mattress dip and strong arms wrap around her. She mumbles something and Dean kisses her softly. "Shh, it's okay. Go back to sleep."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 2, 2012**  
**5:45 a.m.**

The next time Chloe wakes up, she can't go back to sleep even if she wants too. She slips out of the bedroom while Dean dresses, unsurprised yet again to see Chuck sitting in front of Oracle's screens. "Hey," she says, pulling the door closed behind her, making sure it clicks shut.

"Hey." Chuck turns around. His face is pale and the dark circles under his eyes are so prominent it looks like he hasn't slept in weeks, months even. She cautiously takes a few steps toward him and he thrusts a stack of papers out to her. He doesn't say anything the look on his face says it all.

Chloe takes a deep breath and grabs the pages. She looks down at the first line and feels the bottom drop out of her stomach.

_The world is going to end today_.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean pulls his shirt on and pauses, he can hear Chloe and Chuck arguing about something but the door is closed so their conversation is muffled to the point where Dean can't understand what's being said. He pulls his shoes on quickly and grabs his jacket before pulling the door open. Chloe and Chuck are standing toe to toe in the middle of the room. Chuck is looking at her in disbelief and Chloe has her hands clenched into fists at her side. "Hey, everything okay?" he asks hoping to break the tension.

"Everything's fine," Chuck answers for Chloe, painfully tearing his gaze from hers to look at Dean and offer him a completely unconvincing smile. "Just fine."

"Are you coming out there today?" Dean asks Chuck, stepping into the room proper.

Chuck looks between Dean and Chloe and then starts to stutter, the question obviously catching him off guard. "I've never been really good with the w-w-w-weapons and the b-b-b-blood and—"

"No." Chloe interrupts him before he has a nervous breakdown and he sags in relief. "Someone's got to be alive to write about what happened here," she points out to Dean. "Can you make sure all the Jeeps are gassed up and ready to go then meet me at Bobby's?" Chloe grabs the black leather jacket and slips it on. "Emil wants to check my arm one last time, give me a clean bill of health before I die."

"Not funny." Dean places a soft kiss on her cheek then walks out the door.

Chloe turns to Chuck and glares. "Not one word," she warns him one last time before leaving the cabin for the last time, calling for the dog to follow her.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 2, 2012**  
**6:20 a.m.**

Lois watches from the porch of the Mess as Chloe walks out from the tree line alone, her hair damp, dripping water down the back of her jacket. She'd seen her go into the woods about thirty minutes before with Joshua and Malachi, and her hair was perfectly dry. She hurries past Lois without even acknowledging her but Lois isn't insulted, there are certainly more important things to worry about. She hears soft feet come up behind her and a cup of coffee is passed tantalizingly under her nose. "Is this a bribe?" Lois asks, turning around to take the cup from Lucy. "Because I'm taking it, but you're still not going."

"No." Lucy puts her hands in her pockets and offers her sister a sad smile. "I'm done with that. I didn't even want to go, I just…I didn't want you to go without me. I didn't want you somewhere where I didn't know if you were okay."

"I'm gonna be fine." Lois reaches out to Lucy but she flinches away from it.

"You can't know that." Lucy shakes her head.

"This is me you're talking to here kid," Lois jokes. "You used to think I was indestructible, remember."

"I used to think dad was indestructible too," Lucy says. "But he wasn't, and neither are you."

"But I am," Clark says from behind them and Lucy turns around. "I'm stronger than they are, I'm faster than they are, and if someone wants to get to Lois they'll have to go through me first."

Lucy looks up at Clark as her lower lip starts to tremble. He reaches out and pulls the girl against his chest as she sobs it all out. "Can't you just make her stay here, with me?" Lucy asks.

"Have you ever tried to make your sister do anything?" Clark asks, staring over Lucy's head into Lois' eyes. "It never ends well does it?"

"No." Lucy shakes her head and pulls away to look at Clark, face to face. "You bring her back to me. She's all I've got left and if you think she's scary, you've never seen me angry."

Clark is about assure Lucy, a promise he doesn't even know for sure he can keep when the doors to the armory open and Chloe and Dean walk out. That's not what catches everyone's attention though, it's the fact that Bobby walks out after her. Lucas is holding onto his arm but there's no mistaking that Bobby is walking. All eyes shift from Bobby to Chloe and back again. Clark hears snatches of conversations from the excited crowd, "miracle" is said more than once as is, "she healed him". It doesn't take long before Bobby's natural charm peaks through and he grows tired of the attention.

"Quiet," he screams and instinctively the talking stops. "It's like you've never seen a grown man walk before." Clark's not sure if he's the only one who caught the little hitch in Bobby's voice.

"Alright." Chloe takes pity on him, calling the attention to herself. "Take only what you can carry and use what you're most comfortable with. If you're better with a knife, don't take a gun. If you're best with a bow, don't take a sword," she tells them. "When you get your weapons, say your goodbyes and load up into the Jeeps."

"Single file line. You tell Lucas what you need; he'll give it to you. Understood?" Bobby tells everyone. "You want to get impatient and grab for something, that's your choice, but when you come away with one less arm, don't say I didn't warn you."  
The crowd, thoroughly warned, line up single file to get their weapons. Chloe slips through the crowd and over to Lois, Lucy, and Clark. "Hey Luce, you want to do me a favor and go help Lucas?"

"Sure." Lucy nods. She pulls Lois into a bone crushing hug, offers Clark a withering glance as she pulls away then turns to Chloe. "I don't think I ever said thank you, and after everything it might be the last thing you expect to hear from me but I do you know, thank you." Chloe is probably more surprised than anyone when Lucy lunges forward and gives her a hug. And maybe she doesn't hold her as tight or as long as she held onto Lois, but it's still desperate and heartfelt and Chloe can do nothing more than hug her back.

"You're welcome," Chloe whispers and Lucy pulls away, hurrying off to the crowd outside the armory before she can talk herself out of it.

"You guys should hurry, you wait much longer and you won't get a good seat."

"I've got my own transport." Lois looks over Clark and smiles. "But I do still need a weapon." Lois looks over at the armory with a frown. "Hey, Chris, don't think I didn't see that, you know that's my favorite knife." Lois hurries down the steps and Chloe laughs.

"Oliver knows what to do," Chloe assures Clark. "We're gonna deal with them as fast as we can because we know the sooner they're dealt with, the sooner we've got you on our side." She stares at him for a second. "I don't suppose there's any way I can convince you to hang back until it's safe?"

"No," Clark says simply.

"Right." Chloe takes a deep breath and opens her mouth but Clark cuts her off.

"We're not gonna do this," he tells her. "We're not gonna say goodbye, because I refuse to believe that's what this is."

Chloe smiles, her heart swelling. "OK, then. We won't say goodbye." They stand there for a second in complete silence, the only sound they hear is Lois behind them bitching at Bobby for giving away her favorite crossbow.

"Just cause we're not saying goodbye, doesn't me we can't hug," Clark tells her sheepishly and Chloe nods, sliding her arms around his waist and resting her head on his very solid chest. She remembers a time not too long ago that she would have given anything to be in this position, how the mere thought would set her stomach a flutter and now all it does is calm her down, which in its own way is just as good.

"Hey, Boyscout." Oliver jumps the steps two at a time and pulls them out of their moment. "You might want to go make sure Lois doesn't start this thing too early." He nods over his shoulder where Lois has now moved onto berating a soldier.

"Lois," Clark calls out to her.

"No, everyone knows that's my crossbow. It's the one I always use, it's my lucky crossbow," Lois calls back.

"It looks like everything's set," Oliver tells her. "Everyone's armed, jeeps and trucks are all full, we're ready to head out."

"Good, that's good." Chloe nods at him.

"OK, so there's this thing, awkwardly hanging between us," Oliver says in a rush and Chloe looks at him confused. "You know how I'm in love with you and you're…well…not in love with me. I just really want to give you a hug right now but I don't want it to be awkward or for you to think that I think that—"

Chloe effectively shuts him up by standing on her tip toes, grabbing his face with both of her hands and kissing him softly on the lips. "I do love you Oliver, just…not enough." Oliver smiles.

Dean coughs politely from behind them and surprisingly when they turn it's not awkward at all. "They're just waiting for your order," Dean tells Chloe. She walks past both men and on towards the vehicles. Dean looks up at Oliver and raises his eyebrows.

"Don't worry she's all yours." Oliver holds up his hands.

"I know." Dean nods. "I figured that out a few months ago." He tilts his head and smirks. "So, are you gonna be okay?" he asks slightly sarcastically, but mostly sincerely. "Do you need a hug? You look like you need a hug." Dean holds out his arms. "I'm gonna give you a hug now."

"Bitch," Oliver snorts, brushing past Dean with a soft smile on his face and heads for his Jeep.

"Jerk," Dean calls back following him over.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**May 2, 2012**  
**7:01 a.m.**

Chloe and Dean watch as the last truck pulls out of the camp and then Dean turns to Chloe. "So, everyone else is in the Jeeps and trucks, Clark is taking Lois, how are we getting there cause, my baby's not going anywhere near that place." Dean looks over at the Impala and Chloe just smiles.

"I still have Oliver's keys." Chloe smirks at him and walks over to the bike.

"Can I drive this time?" Dean asks and Chloe just laughs in response.

_One night and one more time_

_Thanks for the memories_

_Even though they weren't so great_

_He tastes like you only sweeter_

_-Fall Out Boy_


	18. Have You Ever Seen The Rain

**Have You Ever Seen the Rain?**

_Someone told me long ago_

_There's a calm before the storm_

_I know, it's been comin' for some time _

_When it's over, so they say, it'll rain a sunny day_

_I know, shinin' down like water._

They make it to the rendezvous point about twenty miles outside of Illchester with time to spare. Chloe's pleased to see more troops than she expected waiting for them upon their arrival. Archer did a good job of getting the word out. She meets with the squadron leaders, wants to make sure that everyone knows where they're going, what they're supposed to do and more importantly, who the bad guys are.

"Give me a five minute head start," Chloe says to Oliver as she unzips the leather jacket. "Will that give you enough time to get to your stash?"

"Uh…" Oliver looks at her confused as Castiel tapes what looks like an IV bag to the inside lining of her jacket then threads a thin tube through the sleeve.

"Oliver." Chloe snaps her fingers.

"Yes, more than enough time," he answers her.

"I want you guys focused on Zod and his men. We need to neutralize that threat as soon as possible so we can have Clark back. Without the Kandorians we're gonna need his help," Chloe reminds him.

"I've got my best men on it," Oliver assures her. "Don't worry."

Chloe nods and Castiel zips her jacket back up. "There's a small plug on the end of the tube. You just have to pull that out and you're good to go," Castiel tells her.

Chloe reaches into the sleeve of her jacket and finds the tube. She pulls it down until it's tapping against the inside of her wrist. "Got it."

"I still don't see how this will work." Dean furrows his brow at her.

"Trust me." Chloe smiles at him and turns toward the bike. Lois offers a very loud, very obvious cough and Chloe turns around confused.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Lois asks.

"What?" Chloe goes over it all in her head. She's got the oil, Oliver's dealing with the Kandorians, she still hasn't heard from the angels but she's not worried. "No, I think I've got it covered."

Lois offers her an exaggerated eye roll. "I think now would be a good time for a speech. You know, rally the troops." Lois pushes her slightly toward the assembled masses, then lets out an ear splitting whistle calling everyone's eyes front and center. "Our fearless leader's got something she wants to say," she calls out to them and they turn all their attention to Chloe expectantly.

"Thanks," Chloe whispers at Lois sarcastically.

"No problem." Lois pats her on the back. "Oh and make this one better than last time huh."

"No pressure then." Chloe smiles and takes a deep breath, turning back to the crowd. She's silent for almost a whole minute gathering her thoughts before she begins to speak.

"I want all of you to take a good look around you right now. None of you should be here. None of you should be alive, not if the angels and demons had had their way. We weren't a part of their plans. To tell you the truth, we didn't even factor into them. That was their first mistake. They underestimated us. They assumed, as mere humans, that we would be no match for them. They were wrong." A faint cheer comes up from the back of crowd. "They saw us as nothing more than bugs, far too insignificant, far too powerless to make a difference. They were wrong." Another cheer erupts, this one slightly louder than the last. "They thought that they could wage a war for our planet, on our own soil and we would do nothing. They thought we would sit idly by and let them take everything away from us. They were wrong." This time the whole crowd cheers.

"We fought back," Chloe continues. "We were weaker but we fought back. We had no weapons that could hurt them but we fought back. We clung to whatever we could get our hands on and we held our ground. And just when it started to seem hopeless, we gained new ground. We fought back then and we kept fighting, we're still fighting." The cheering gets louder. "But we're getting tired." This sobers them up for a second. "We put up a good front but it's wearing us down. It's wearing me down so I know it's wearing you down. I'm asking you now for one more day. That's it. Just one more day. Today, one way or another this will all be over. It ends today."

A murmur goes through the crowd. "Lucifer visited me in my dream the other night. He said he just wanted to talk. He offered me a deal. He promised to spare my life if I went over to his side. He said if I didn't, he would storm my camps and slaughter us all. I think he meant it to come off as menacing, threatening, he wanted to show me that he had the power, but that's not how I saw it. He's scared. We aren't even supposed to be here but we are and he's starting to worry that maybe we can actually pull this off. So he's scrambling, he's desperate. Given the chance he will ambush us, he will storm our camps and he'll kill us all. I know this for certain. So we aren't going to give him the chance. Today we take the fight to him." The crowd goes crazy again.

Chloe holds up her hands to calm them down again. "I know you've all heard rumors, stories about me. You think you know what I'm supposed to do. You know what the angels think I'll do and you know what Lucifer thinks I'll do. But I don't even know what I'm going to do. I don't know what's going to happen out there anymore than you do. But I do know this; I'm not some mythical savior sent down from heaven to absolve you all your sins. I'm not your messiah. I'm not going to lead you into the Promised Land; I'm going to lead you into battle. I know that most of you will die, that's simply a fact. Some of you will survive, but depending on the outcome, that's not automatically a good thing. I know that our war is a just war. I know our faith, our lives, our very humanity is worth fighting for. I know that it's worth dying for. I know that our mere existence, while messy and imperfect as it is, is ours. It is a gift, given to us by God and until he sees fit to take it away from me himself, I'm going to hold on tight with every last breath in my body." Chloe turns away as the crowd goes crazy and sees Lois watching her, a smile on her face.

"How was that? Better than last time?" Chloe asks.

"It was no Shakespeare, but it'll do," Lois assures her.

Chloe spies something out of the corner of her eye, a person hovering on the edge of the gathered crowd, a dark black hood pulled up over their head. The group in front of Chloe hardly adheres to a strict dress code, so one hoodie in a sea of camo, leather, flannel and denim isn't what catches Chloe's eye. It's the fact that whoever is inside that hood is trying their hardest to not be seen. Through her entire speech, their head had been bowed, while everyone else had been looking straight up at her.

Dean notices her sudden alert stance and makes a move toward her but she holds up a hand and shakes her head. The figure, suddenly aware that they're being watched, darts behind a truck and Chloe takes off, rounding the truck on the other side, a half a second too late as the figure runs a head of her. Chloe reaches out and grabs, catching a handful of black leather and jerking back the hood.

The figure spins around with a gasp and Chloe freezes. "Lana," she breathes out in disbelief.

Lana takes a step back and quickly pulls the hood back up, smoothing down her cloak, glancing around nervously. "It's lead lined," she swears. "I'm being careful," she argues cutting Chloe off before she has a chance to bring it up.

"OK," Chloe says still slightly dazed. "What are you doing here?"

"We got the message." Lana smiles slightly. "Came right away."

"We?" Chloe asks.

"Pete and I," Lana tells her.

"Pete's with you?" Chloe asks excitedly and looks around the immediate area.

"He was," Lana clarifies. "We were ambushed this morning on our way here, he didn't make it. It's like they knew we were coming, what today is, knew that one way or another this was it." Lana's voice hardens a bit. "They've been getting bolder the past few months, ever since the cure came out, encroaching into the camps, attacking in broad daylight. They've been trying to turn less and just killing more."

"I know," Chloe whispers.

"Of course you do," Lana breathes out softly.

"Look, don't get me wrong," Chloe says reaching out and laying a soft hand on Lana's arm. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you, to know that you're alive, but you can't be here."

"But I can help," Lana protests.

"No, you can't. The Kandorians are going to betray us and we have a plan in place but I can't have you accidentally neutralizing our arsenal. As much as I'd love the extra muscle, you'd just cripple us."

Lana's face falls but she doesn't give up. "With the cloak, I can hang back, wait until you give me the go ahead. I've been fighting for you in the shadows all this time, roaming around from place to place, wherever I can do the most good but if this is the end, I want to stand _with_ you."

Chloe stares at her, Lana Lang. Their friendship has always been a strange one. They ran in different circles, rarely saw eye to eye on things yet always stood by each other. Except Lana was always standing out front, just a little bit further than Chloe, she was the pretty one, the cheerleader, the one who won Clark's heart, she led, Chloe followed. But for the past few years Lana had been following, had been hanging back and working silently in Chloe's shadow. And while all those people out there right now had been doing the exact same thing for just as long, somehow it meant more that Lana had done it.

"No," Chloe says and Lana's face twists with despair.. "I need you out there doing what you've been doing, what you do best- helping people, rallying the survivors, just in case this thing goes south." Lana tries to protest again but Chloe stops her. "I know how this all plays out Lana, how it ends and you're not here. I thought at first it meant that you were dead but now I know it's because you had another job to do."

"Okay." Lana swallows. She doesn't want to think too hard about what Chloe just said because it almost sounded like Chloe was telling her, they weren't going to win this and she knew that for sure. "Okay, I'll head back to Arizona."

Chloe sucks in a breath and looks at her slightly differently. "You're the one that helped us get Arizona back?"

Lana swells at the admiration she sees in Chloe's eyes and shrugs. "I go where I'm needed. After today, if the worlds still standing, I'll head to New York." Lana smiles softly. "I wanted to go before but Pete wouldn't let me go without him and it's ten times the hot zone Arizona was."

Chloe marvels wondering how many people are alive today because of Lana. In a fit of nostalgia Chloe reaches forward and pulls her old friend into a tight hug. Under the suit she still feels like Lana and that makes Chloe feel better in a strange way. She lets out a breath and sinks into the hug.

"Chloe?" Dean asks walking up to the two of them.

"It's fine," Chloe assures him pulling back, just slightly. "This is an old friend of mine, Lana Lang. Lana, this is…"

"Dean Winchester, I know." Lana nods at him then turns her head back to Chloe, waggling her eyebrows. "He's so much hotter in person," she whispers and suddenly they're back in high school, sitting across from each other at the Talon sipping drinks with too much sugar and not enough coffee, giggling about boys.

Dean begins to feel uneasy under their penetrating gaze and his cheeks color slightly which just makes them laugh out loud and makes Dean shuffle his feet. He taps his watch and Chloe gets the hint. Pulling back from Lana she manages to communicate four years worth of missed conversations and unspoken apologies into one small smile.

"Take care of him," Lana says and Chloe nods.

Neither of them bother to specify who the _he_ is, they both know and then Lana's gone in a blur of black and Dean raises an eyebrow.

"Clark's ex," Chloe explains. "A while back she got her self a super-powered invincibility suit courtesy of the late Lex Luthor. At the time I thought it was a bit overkill but now...seems she's been secretly using it to help even the playing field for us."

"Were you guys really close?" Dean asks.

"Depends on the day of the week," Chloe shrugs. "Sometimes we were like sisters and sometimes...I just really wanted to ring her scrawny little cheerleader neck."

"So BFF's then?" Dean smiles as Chloe rolls her eyes.

"I wouldn't go that far," she says. "We make it through this in one piece I should probably by her a cup of coffee, maybe a fruit basket." Chloe says. "You know as a thank you."

"Thanks for helping us avert the apocalypse. Here, have a fruit basket?" Dean teases her.

"I'll think of something." Chloe nudges his shoulder with her own. "Or maybe the world ends and I don't have to worry about it."

Dean slings an arm over her shoulder and pulls her in close. "That's my girl, always looking on the bright side," he jokes and kisses her temple.

Chloe walks over to the bike with Dean, and finds Sam and Cass waiting for her. Chloe feels like she should say something else, something personal, just for them because regardless of the soldiers and hunters out there that have her back, it's really only the four of them that matter at the moment. "We just have to wait for the rain," Chloe says glancing up at the crystal clear blue sky overhead.

"What?" Dean frowns at her.

She looks back at the three of them. "Chuck told me that it would all be over when the rain started. So we just have to hold on until it rains." They all look up at the sky and there's not a cloud in sight. Chloe takes a deep breath and looks over at Sam. "You said no." she reminds him and he turns his attention back to her. "You made it this far and you said no."

"I did," he agrees with her.

"I need to know that you aren't going to do something stupid when we get out there," Chloe tells him. "I need to know that if it looks like things are going south, you aren't going to jump in and do something noble and try and save the world."

"I won't," Sam assures her.

"Swear to me, Sammy," Chloe says to him. "Swear to me that you will not become one of them, one of the Hollow Men."

"I swear," Sam says, looking her straight in the eye.

"_Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow_," Chloe whispers.

"_For thine is the kingdom_." Sam offers her a cheeky smile.

Encouraged, Chloe continues, "_Between the conception and the creation, between the emotion and the response, falls the shadow. Between desire and the spasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the descent, falls the shadow_."

"_For thine is the kingdom_." Sam takes a deep breath and they finish together, "_For Thine, is Life, is For Thine is the_..."

"Is this some geek thing?" Dean whispers to Castiel.

"It's from the poem," Sam says. "The Hollow Men."

"I don't really know any prayers and it was the only thing I could think of. It just…seemed fitting." Chloe shrugs.

"Well then." Dean smiles. "Amen." He looks over to Castiel and Sam and jerks his head to the side. Castiel offers Chloe one last look before he and Sam walk off toward the others leaving Dean and Chloe alone. "You ready for this?" he asks her.

"As I'll ever be," she assures him, making her way over to the bike and leaning against the seat.

"I'm right behind you," he tells her, reaching up to cup her face with his hands and leaning his forehead against hers.

"I know," Chloe closes her eyes and grabs his wrists.

"If you get scared or worried just remember, it's you and me," he whispers.

"I know." She pushes forward slightly, pressing the softest of kisses to his lips. "What I said to Sammy, that goes for you too." She pulls back a little, forcing him to look her in the eye. "You say no. You promised me forever," Chloe reminds him, the tears barely contained, her voice cracking with every word she says. "And I intend to collect. So no matter what happens, no matter what anyone says, or what anyone does, you say no. For me."

"I will," he promises her, even knowing that if he says no then she'll have to say yes, to what he's still not sure. But she's asking him, not for the world, not for humanity or the angels or the demons, she's asking him to do it for her, so there's no way he can refuse. "I will." He wants to kiss her again, he wants to hold her close and never let her go but he doesn't because he knows if he doesn't walk away now he won't be able to. He drops a kiss onto her forehead then turns and walks toward Sam who looks, once again like he's about to cry.

"Hey!" Chloe calls out to him. He spins back around and looks at her. She looks nervous, she's biting away the skin on her bottom lip and pulling at a loose string on the sleeve of her jacket and she's never looked more beautiful to him.

Chloe's stares as Dean turns and, all she can think about is what she didn't say to him this morning, what she should have said to him this morning.

**Earlier that morning…**

_Chloe wakes up lazily. The soft morning light filters through the bedroom window, catching on the crystal pendant casting small rainbows onto the bed sheets beside her. She stares at it for a while before grabbing it and holding it up higher, spinning it slightly until she gets it at just the right angle. Light fractures into a million tiny rays spraying the room with pinks and blues and greens and the colors dance with movement along the walls and over the bedspread. "That's better than an alarm clock," Dean whispers beside her as he digs his head further in between the pillow and her neck. Chloe drops the crystal back to her chest and smiles sheepishly._

_His breath is hot at her neck, his arm secure around her middle, holding her close, keeping her in place like it has been all night and Chloe smiles at the thought. Two weeks ago it would have made her feel trapped but now it just makes her feel safe. For just a moment it allows her to forget where she is. Forget everything that's happening and just be a girl, waking up with a boy. She feels (a) contentment, somewhere in her soul, as if it's been restless her whole life without him and now that he's here, now that they've found each other, it's quiet, sated, happy. _

_The feeling shakes her and as much as she's been denying it to everyone else, to Dean, to herself, she knows now that she does love him. She wonders how she could have missed it, ignored it when every molecule in her body is yelling it at her, loudly, on repeat. He presses lazy kisses along her back and shoulder blade and she gives into the moment, snuggling back further into his embrace, pressing her body against his and earning a deep groan in response as her hips accidentally brush against his morning erection. _

_Dean's arm tightens around her waist; he opens his hands, splaying his fingers across her stomach. Chloe laughs softly and presses back again. His kisses on her neck become firmer, more insistent and she can't help the small whimper that escapes. She can feel Dean's lips curve into a smile on the skin of her neck and his fingers dip teasingly lower and lower. "I can't stop touching you. I feel like I haven't touched you in months. Why do I feel like I haven't touched you in months?" he whispers in her ear and Chloe rolls over so that she's facing him. _

_"Because you haven't," Chloe reminds him. _

_"Why?" Dean asks honestly confused. _

_"Because-" Chloe's breath hitches as he slides a knee between her legs, his thigh creating just the perfect amount of friction, the words die in her throat and turn into gasp of pleasure. "Because you were mad at me." She reminds him._

_"Right." Dean pants pulling Chloe closer until there's not an inch of space between them, nose to nose, chest to chest, hip to hip. "That was stupid," he whispers in her ear before placing a light kiss at the side of her neck. "So stupid. We could have had months and now we've only got…"_

_"Today." Chloe gasps and arches slightly forward when his lips find the spot just behind her ear. "We've got this morning," she tells him, her hips slowly rocking against his leg in an agonizing rhythm. _

_Dean wraps his hand around her waist, gripping her and holding her into place. She lets out a growl of protest and he smiles. "We should probably make it memorable then," he says against her lips._

_"That is a plan I can get on board with," Chloe assures him, sliding their lips together finally. She rolls until she's on her back, pulling Dean along with her, on top of her, and the playful exploration from before has turned desperate and needy and suddenly her pants are gone and so are his and he grips her hips and slides completely inside her. _

_"Oh God." Chloe tears her mouth away from his then bites her lip to keep her from crying out because surely by now, today, people are up, there's bound to be someone in the Situation Room already. _

_"Sorry, I couldn't-" Dean grunts with the effort of holding himself back. _

_"No, it's fine, really," she assures him catching her breath. "It's more than fine, it just came as a bit of a surprise. Warn a girl next time," she jokes and he leans down, offering her a soft, practically chaste kiss as his hips slowly begin to move. _

_Her leg wraps around his waist, pulling her hips slightly off the bed and allowing him to go in just a little bit further and this time she can't stop the moan as he hits just the right spot. She steals a look at the door connecting her bedroom to the rest of the cabin and Dean's hand leaves her hips to grab her chin and force her gaze back to him. _

_"Forget about them, look at me," he pants, his rhythm speeding up a bit. "It's just you and me okay?" _

_Chloe nods unable to speak as he hits the same spot over and over with every new thrust. _

_"You and me," he says again. _

_"Dean." His name is nothing more than whisper on her lips, a plea. Her fingers have the sheets in a white knuckled grip but they move to his back, sliding up his shoulders, clutching him to her, like she's terrified to let him go. His eyes are boring into hers, somehow causing every sensation to be amplified a thousand times over. She can feel where every inch of her body is touching his, feel his breath on her lips. _

_The energy is frenzied now, both of them meeting wildly with no sense of rhythm and just when it's almost too much, almost at that point where pleasure turns to pain, Chloe's hips shift, slamming up frantically to meet Dean's and he catches the spot again, sending her falling over the edge. _

_She tightens around him, her whole body clenching and that's all he needs. It's Dean who breaks the eye contact, dropping his forehead to her shoulder as his whole body shakes with release. His arms are too weak to hold himself up and he collapses on top of Chloe._

_His weight is solid on top of her and surprising in the way that it isn't surprising at all. It seems like it's always been there, like he's always been there, like he was meant to be there. "Dean." Her voice sounds strained to her own ears, the desperation choking her. _

_"I know," he whispers into her shoulder. "I know." _

_"You and me," she whispers, surprised at how the weight of that statement seems to make her feel lighter._

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Before Dean knows it she's running toward him, crashing into him. Her hands are gripping at his neck and then she's kissing him and it's desperate and hungry and it's still not enough, not nearly enough and when she pulls away to suck in a breath Dean forgets his name for a second.

"I love you," Chloe whispers against his mouth and then Dean forgets everything. He kisses her back, it's awkward and clumsy because he can't get the stupid grin off of his face but she doesn't seem to care because he can feel her smile too. She pulls away and laughs. "I love you," she says again more boldly and it's like it gets easier every time. "I love you, Dean Winchester," she says one last time and then she's gone, jogging back toward the bike and pulling the helmet on. She starts the engine and rides off.

It isn't until she turns the corner and Dean loses sight of her that he realizes he didn't get a chance to say it back.

"Dean." Castiel walks up behind him, stirring him from his thoughts. "We must get ready."

"Yeah," Dean says and turns back to the camp where Oliver's rounding up his men. Dean hopes they can get to the stash of Kryptonite weapons in time and then realizes he doesn't have to hope, he knows, he's read it. "So this is it I guess," Dean says to Castiel. "End of the line. I can't exactly say it's been fun." Dean pauses and smiles, a memory of bringing Castiel to a strip club comes to mind and he laughs. "Well it's been a little fun."

"I too have had moments of enjoyment," Castiel admits. "I have something for you," he says suddenly and Dean stops and turns to him.

"Oh, do I finally get my very own ancient all powerful sword?" Dean says. "To tell you the truth I had felt kind of left out when I didn't get one."

"I hadn't realized you would have wanted one. I can go get you one now if you like, I hear that King Arthur was buried with his," Castiel says.

"No I don't need-wait are you telling me that not only is Excalibur real but you can get it for me?" Dean asks and Castiel cracks a small smile. "You were joking there." Dean shakes his head. "Chloe has been a bad influence on you." Castiel simply shrugs. "So if it's not Excalibur, what did you get me?"

Castiel pulls from his pocket something Dean had been sure he'd never see again. His necklace, his amulet. "I thought you'd lost it or forgotten about it," he says, taking it from the angel.

"No, I just held onto it in the hopes that it might be of some use but I think at this point it will serve you more than it does me," Castiel offers. "If as nothing more than a good luck charm."

"Good luck?" Dean asks dropping it over his head, feeling it settle against his chest. "What luck has this every brought me?"

"Well," Castiel pauses, "it brought me to Chloe, which brought _you_ to Chloe so I'd say it works at least slightly better than the severed appendage of a wild hare would."

"A rabbit's foot Cass, rabbit's foot." Dean shakes his head. "You joke about Excalibur but you can't get that right?" Dean tosses his arm over Castiel's shoulder and they walk back to the camp.

"How can a rabbit's foot be lucky?" Castiel asks. "It obviously did not bring the rabbit much luck, otherwise he would not have been caught and subsequently dissected."

Dean laughs and shakes his head. "Don't ever change," Dean tells him.

Chloe pulls into the parking lot of St. Mary's Cathedral and parks by the chapel. As she lays the helmet on the bike handle and shakes out her hair the strangest feeling of deja vu engulfs her. She knows it's because not six hours ago, she read about herself doing this exact thing. She prepares herself for a whole day of this feeling as she heads up the hill and around the chapel, then pauses. She turns around and stares at the large stone building.

She walks slowly into the courtyard, onto the well worn and overgrown cobblestone path until she's standing in front of the ornately carved doors. She opens them almost hesitantly and takes a step inside. Her footsteps echo loudly on the marble floor as she makes her way down the deserted hall toward the sanctuary. Sunlight streams through the stained glass windows, the only light in the space. She stops when she reaches the end of the hallway and pushes the chapel doors open.

She stares up ahead, not quite ready to venture into the room itself, content for the moment to stand outside of it and observe. Since the last time Dean and Sam were here, the day Lucifer was freed from the pit, someone had made a point to lovingly restore the place to its former glory. She's not sure who and she's not sure why but it looks nothing like Dean had described it.

All of the junk has been cleared out, the place scrubbed top to bottom. The intricate wood framing has been sanded and refinished, the marble floors polished and shined. The pews have been replaced, four long wooden benches on either side of the isle that leads straight up to the altar. It seems innocuous enough but Chloe can't take her eyes off of it. It's the same altar where Azazel scarified the nuns, the same altar where Sam sacrificed Lilith and it will be the same altar where Chloe-she takes a shuddering breath and steps inside.

There's a stone vessel just to the right of the doorway, filled to the brim with crystal clear water. Like the restoration of the chapel, she's not sure who put it there or why, but she doesn't question it. The fact that it is there is a strange sort of comfort to her. Out of habit from watching Jimmy do it so many times, Chloe dips her fingers into the pool and then crosses herself quickly.

She walks down the aisle, her eyes still trained on the altar and slowly sits down at the front pew. "So," Chloe calls out into the empty room, her voice echoes just slightly off the marble walls and she jumps. "This is ridiculous, I mean I don't even know who I think I'm talking to but—I'm not very good at this," she says. "That should be painfully obvious. I just thought, I don't know what I thought." She rubs her face with her hands, feeling foolish but she presses on, "Father Mac figures that just because you're not around, doesn't mean you aren't listening. I'm not sure exactly how that works but it's all I've got at this moment so here goes."

She takes another deep breath. "I need your help," Chloe says matter-of-factly. "I've tried to do this by myself and I just can't anymore. I have to go out there in a minute and clean up your mess and I'm not even sure I can do it. I don't know what you want from me—no, wait." She thinks of the pages Chuck handed her this morning and her frown deepens. "I know exactly what you want of me and it's not fair. It's not fair of you to ask that of me. It's not fair of you to put me in that position. People are going to die today, good people, and there's nothing I can do to stop that. They chose to fight and they understood when they signed up what the consequences of that choice would be but he didn't get to choose. He didn't have a say in any of this and that's not right and I don't know what to do so, if you really are listening, if you really can hear me, I need help. I feel like I'm drowning here and I'm not asking you to save me, I just asking for some help, just a little, a life saver, a hand, just enough so that I can take one good deep breath and then I can take it from there."

Chloe nods, satisfied that she's said everything she needed to say before standing up and walking out. She trudges through the courtyard and out into the convent ground and she sees Lucifer, exactly where Chuck said he would be, basking in a patch of sunlight, waiting for her. He turns around as she gets closer and smiles brightly.

"You're early," he says with a smile when he sees her and she stops in her tracks. He makes his way over to her, his smile getting bigger with every step and Chloe has to try her very hardest not to be physically ill on his shoes when he finally stops in front of her. "Why'd you pick this place?"

"It's where it all started right?" Chloe shrugs and he offers her a sort of condescending smile. "Thought it only fitting this is where it should end."

"Oh sweetheart, this isn't where it started." Chloe frowns at this confused. "And this so far from the end. The things the two of us are going to accomplish."

"Yeah, about that." Chloe shakes her head, the wind blowing her hair into her face. She pushes her shoulders up against her ears to shield them a bit. "There's been a slight change of plan." With her hand in her pocket she pulls the plastic tube into the her palm and works the cap off the end, pinching it quickly lest any oil escape.

"Has there?" The smile slowly slips from Lucifer's face and he studies Chloe more intently.

"You really thought I would agree to this?" Chloe asks Lucifer, pulling her hand from her pocket and releasing her hold on the tube, letting a steady stream of oil fall to the ground. Slowly, Chloe begins to circle Lucifer. "You thought I would sacrifice everything, just to save Dean?"

"Well I was hoping." Lucifer sighs spinning in place to keep an eye on her as she walks around him. "I mean John sacrificed himself for Dean, Dean sacrificed himself for Sam. What's wrong? Do you not love him enough? Does he not love you enough?" Chloe smirks but says nothing as she finds herself back where she started. "Is the problem in the bedroom? Can he not satisfy you?" Lucifer asks rocking back on his heels.

"Oh I can satisfy the shit out of her," Dean says smugly from behind him and Lucifer spins around genuinely surprised. "Though I'm not usually one to kiss and tell." Dean starts patting his pockets. He leans around Lucifer's shoulder to see Chloe. "Do you have a light? I seem to have misplaced mine."

"Sorry, I borrowed it the other day," Chloe says absentmindedly as if she'd forgotten, sliding her hand out of the pocket of her jacket and tossing the Zippo over Lucifer's head to him. Dean catches it with his right hand just long enough to flick it open, light the wick, and drop it to the ground. Lucifer watches it's decent with increased amusement and confusion until it hits the slightly damp grass and ignites the circle of oil around him. He takes a step forward only to freeze, unable to get any farther.

"I told you it would work," Chloe scolds Dean then looks at Lucifer's face. His smile is completely gone now. "I told him it would work, but he didn't believe me. He said it only worked on angels and I reminded him that you were an angel...once upon a time anyway." Chloe unzips her jacket and removes the now empty IV bag, pulling the tube out of the arm of the jacket and holding it up to the light so Lucifer can see a small amount of amber colored liquid settled in the bottom. "Holy Oil." She tosses the bag over the fire and Lucifer catches it instinctively. She brings her palm up to her nose and sniffs it. "I say it smells a bit citrusy but Castiel disagrees, what do you think?"

Lucifer looks over at Chloe, drops the bag of oil to the ground, and laughs. "What exactly is it you think you accomplished here? So you've caught me, for the time being. Did you really think I came alone?"

Demons, hundreds of them, step out onto the grounds. Chloe looks over at Dean who offers her a subtle nod.

"That's okay. 'Cause I didn't either." Chloe shrugs. She slips her fingers in her mouth and lets out a high pitched whistle. The convent grounds which had seemed so open and vast before are suddenly now even more crowded as hunters, Metas, soldiers and Kandorians join the demons. "What? You thought he was the only back up I brought?" Chloe walks around Lucifer to stand next to Dean. "No offense."

"None taken," Dean assures her.

No one attacks, everyone seems to be frozen in a strange sort of Mexican stand-off, except for Chloe's team who slowly starts to make their way through the crowd toward her until they're standing behind her.

"You know, somehow I just knew I couldn't trust you. You're one of the good guys, you're supposed to be trustworthy." Chloe offers him a non-apologetic shrug. "Good thing, I planned for this very moment right here," Lucifer says.

Dean's smile fades from his face as Lucifer nods at something over Chloe's shoulder. He turns in time to see Alia nod back before turning into a blur, a blur headed straight for Chloe. "Hey!" Dean screams. He knew this would happen, he'd read the pages from Chuck but he still wasn't ready for it. He knows, even though he's standing right next to Chloe, there's nothing he can do to stop Alia, there's no way he's even quick enough to push Chloe out of the way.

He doesn't have to because suddenly Alia is standing stock still, the blade of Chloe's sword inches from Chloe's back and Dean swallows hard. She'd been moving so fast that he never even saw her take the sword but it was a smart move. If anything could kill Chloe, that would be it. There's a look of pain mixed with confusion on Alia's face and Dean follows her gaze as it moves from Chloe to her own body where a titanium arrow is protruding from her chest.

Chloe hasn't moved, not a muscle, not an inch. She hasn't turned around to see what's going on, she doesn't need to because like Dean, she knew it was going to happen and Dean admires the control it took for her not to look. Chloe simply stares straight ahead, over Lucifer's shoulder, into the furious gaze of Zod. He moves just slightly and Chloe raises her hand into the air. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she warns him.

A simple flick of her wrist and Oliver steps up behind her, his crossbow aimed at Zod, another arrow already loaded. Only it's plainly obvious this arrow, like the one protruding from Alia's chest has a glowing green tip.

"You don't think I saw this coming from day one?" Chloe turns and walks around to Alia's back, grabbing the staff of the arrow. She pulls it, just a little, sinking the glowing kryptonite tip back inside of Alia's body and the Kandorian grunts, dropping Chloe's sword to the ground. "What did he offer you to betray me Zod?" Alia's veins enlarge, stretching her skin and her blood turns green as the kryptonite literally drains the life from her body.

Zod takes a menacing step forward and Oliver moves his finger to hover over the trigger of the crossbow. He stops in his tracks and glares at Chloe, certain that he could get to her before Oliver even pulled the trigger, but unsure if it would even be worth it, it's not like he can actually kill her after all. "He told me that I would rule with him in the new world, beside him." Zod answers.

"Better to reign in hell?" Chloe grunts.

"I have been taking orders from you, a human, for far too long," Zod says. "He has powers over this planet that I could only dream of."

"And you think he'll share those powers with you?" Chloe laughs, tilting the arrow up just slightly before shoving it further into Alia, piercing her heart. Alia gasps and drops to her knees. "You're a fool Zod. I always knew you were power mad but I at least had assumed you were smart. You're nothing to him, you're a pawn, a tool and when you have served your purpose and he no longer needs you, he will dispose of you as he does everything else."

"Is that no more than what I was to you?" Zod accuses her, his jaw clenched as he watches his right hand, his most trusted soldier expel her last breath at Chloe's feet. "You used me just as he will."

"Yes, but I have never made a secret about that," Chloe reminds him. "The difference is, in the end, I would have given you freedom, I would have given you what you wanted. A life, a place on this planet to call your own. You would have been your own man, not mine, never mine."

"It is easy to say that now." Zod looks down at Alia's body. "And yet I don't think that you just miraculously produced these weapons over night." Chloe shrugs because in a way she had. "You have chosen your side and we have chosen ours. Make no mistake about it Chloe Sullivan, I will kill you this day."

"Get in line," Chloe snaps at him and turns her gaze back on Lucifer, slightly satisfied with herself. "You're outnumbered," Chloe tells him picking up her sword from where Alia dropped it. "And the Kandorians are useless to you now."

"This is an interesting development," Lucifer muses. "But it doesn't matter. You could have a hundred million soldiers and still you're puny little human army would be no match for me."

"No, it wouldn't," Chloe agrees, hoping beyond hope that her instincts had been right, that she can trust the angels to come through for her. "But a heavenly one might just stand a chance."

_::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::_

_Zachariah paces the length of the small apartment. This wasn't how things were supposed to go, this was definitely not part of the plan. He was supposed to be in charge now, this was supposed to have been over months, years ago. He'd planned everything out, every last detail. What he hadn't counted on were the stupid humans and their outdated concept of what was right and what was just and of course—free will, the bane of his current state of existence. _

_"You're pacing again," Raphael says to Zachariah from his position at the table in the corner where he's currently engaged in a game of chess with the Archangel Haniel. _

_"Of course I'm pacing," Zachariah snaps. "We've been cooped up in this place for weeks now. I can't even go outside because someone insisted that the tide was about to turn and we needed to be here when it did." Zachariah glances over at the offending angel who is looking out the East facing window with a smile on his face. _

_"So it is written so shall it be," Raziel says cryptically. _

_Zachariah wants to snap at him, he's tired of half truths and benign riddles which is all that the Archangel will speak in these days, but without access to the Prophet, the former Scribe of Heaven is all they've got. He alone besides God has seen all that is and all that will be and has recorded it all, though refuses to share any of that knowledge with the rest of them. He doesn't even believe in their cause but he followed them anyway, when asked why he simply smiled that infuriating all knowing smile and said, "It is written that I came with you, so I will come with you"._

_He had told them weeks ago that the end was coming soon, that they would be sent a sign and then all that will be left to do is to wait for the rain. But there'd been no sign, there had been no rain, nor even any storm clouds that would herald the arrival of the rain and Zachariah is growing impatient. He opens his mouth to tell the others exactly that), when they hear a loud crash come from out in the hallway. They all turn to look just as the door splinters inward, the impact of the body being thrown through it, far more than the hollow wooden slab can take. _

_The body of a dirty, bloody, obviously dead man slides across the room and stops inches from Zachariah's feet and he stares at it. He instantly recognizes the signs of an infected, but it doesn't make any sense because they never come this close to the apartment. _

_"Talk about downsizing," a voice calls from the doorway. _

_Zachariah looks up to see Chloe stepping over the shards of broken wood that used to be their door. She's looking around the dingy apartment with unrestrained glee in her eyes before she sees him. _

_"You guys went from the Mansion at the MGM Grand to a tenth floor walk up in Alphabet City. That recession was a bitch wasn't it?" Chloe shakes her head in mock sympathy._

_Zachariah makes a move toward her just as Castiel steps into the apartment behind her. "Don't." Chloe raises Solomon's sword in her hands, the teasing out of her voice now. Zachariah thinks for a second that he could take her. She looks tired and she's taken a beating. Her lip is split, there's blood smeared on her temple, crusting in her hair and there's a gash on her cheek and neck but while she's holding onto that sword, he's not going to take any chances. _

_"Stand down," Raziel says laying a calming hand on Zachariah's arm, looking at Chloe with a welcoming smile on his face and that's when Zachariah realizes that she's who they've been waiting for, she's the sign, the turn of the tide. _

_"What do you want?" Raphael asks, his voice low and angry. _

_Chloe slowly walks toward the table that Haniel has now vacated, stopping to stand on the other side of it opposite the arch-angel. There is no love lost between he and the girl either. While she's managed to outsmart Zachariah more times than he cares to think about, thwarted his plans again and again, the injuries she's inflicted upon Raphael's pride are far worse transgressions. He killed her, he knows it and she knows it and yet somehow she didn't have the decency to stay dead. Just to rub salt in the wound Raphael remembers the look in her eyes, her sincerest "thank you" as the sword cut through her body and he bristles once again at the memory that if she hadn't wanted him too, he likely never would have gotten close enough to kill her. _

_"You know, initially I came here with the idea that we could sit down, talk calmly and rationally, that I could convince you to see things from my side, possibly change your minds. If that didn't work, I was even willing to go so far as to offer you some sort of deal but you know what?" She slaps her hand onto the table, still holding the sword and leans closer to Raphael. "I'm hungry, I'm sticky, and I'm exhausted. I have a really big day tomorrow and someone just broke my arm." She casts a glance over her shoulder at Castiel who glares at her in annoyance. Zachariah looks down at her left arm and notices how it's dangling limply at her side._

_"I told you, I didn't realize it was you," Castiel reminds her walking up beside her. "Who grabs someone in the middle of a fight anyway, you're lucky all I did was break your arm." _

_Zachariah looks over at Castiel in confusion, the teasing tone in his voice, the self assured, easy way he carries himself, it's like seeing a completely different person. _

_"So here's what's going to happen," Chloe says, "There's going to be no discussion, there's going to be no deal. I'm going to tell you what you're going to do and you're going to do it." _

_"You, a human, presume to come in here and order us around." Zachariah moves to stand beside Raphael. _

_"I do," Chloe snaps at him. They stand there staring across the table at each other. Chloe and Castiel on one side, Raphael and Zachariah on the other. "Look around, you've lost. For all the time and energy, all the planning and scheming you've put into this and you're not even in the game anymore. You haven't been for a while. You allowed this whole thing to spiral out of control so what I'm going to do is come in and clean up your mess and you're gonna say thank you, you know why? Cause I'm all you've got left." _

_"Dean could still say yes," Zachariah challenges her. _

_"No." Chloe shakes her head once. "He won't. I won't let him. I've been busting my ass for the past three years so that he didn't have to say yes. I've done things that I-and I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure he never does." Zachariah deflates slightly. Chloe lifts the sword up and spins it in the sunlight. "Some of you believe that I am not the rightful owner of this sword, I used to believe that too, but not anymore. I am the true wielder of Solomon's sword, I am the one that the prophecy spoke of, I am the Mashiach, the savior of the people of Israel and I am promising you right now that I will bring God back." _

_They're all staring at her now, some of them in fear, some of them in awe, most of them wondering how they could have ever thought she was anything less than what she claims. _

_"It's over," Chloe tells them. "When I walk out that door, that's it, there'll be no stopping it and you'll have a choice to make. You can choose to cling to this delusion, this "better" world you were going to build, or you can listen to me, you can follow me. You can help me put this world back on track. I know it wasn't perfect. I know we weren't perfect, no one's perfect but we didn't deserve this and you know it."_

_"How?" Raphael asks her. "How can we possibly come back from this? From what we've done? He will never forgive us, we don't deserve to be forgiven." _

_"No, you don't, but that doesn't matter." Chloe offers the angel a small smile. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."_

_Raphael offers her his own tentative smile. "Ephesians 2:8." _

_"You can come back from this. You will come back from this, but it's up to you to choose how. You can slink back with your tail between your legs, or you can walk back with your head held high, with your honor perhaps a bit rusty but otherwise still intact, knowing that in the end you chose to do the right thing," Chloe tells them pushing away from the table and backing up toward the door. "Tomorrow, noon. Saint Mary's Cathedral."_

_"How can you be sure you'll win?" Raziel asks her._

_"I can't. Maybe I'll win, maybe I'll lose, but I'm not going down without a fight," Chloe says sliding the sword into it's sheath. "And I have faith, maybe it's time you guys remembered what that was like." Chloe reaches the door and Castiel moves to follow her out. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Lucifer looks up and notices the suits first. The ground has gotten even more crowded in the past five seconds. Now scattered among the demons and the hunters, the soldiers and the Kandorians are angels, hundreds of angels, possibly thousands, certainly more angels than Lucifer believed were still in existence.

"Checkmate." Chloe smirks.

"Not just yet," Lucifer scolds her and the next second the world rips apart.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Castiel can feel the fight draining him. It's only been a little less than an hour but his muscles are starting to fatigue. The ground around him is littered with bodies but his spirits do not fall because there are just as many demon as human causalities. He chances a look behind him and relaxes when he sees that Lucifer is still bound by his prison of holy flames, one thing to be grateful for he supposes. Unfortunately, in a battle like this, that one second, that one glance costs him dearly and he doesn't understand how much until he feels the coolness of the steel blade pressed against the base of his skull.

However, just as quickly as it is placed there, it is removed and Castiel spins to see a woman pulling the demon away from him and sliding her weapon into the demon's back. Castiel has a thank you ready on the tip of his tongue until the redhead's eyes flood black and she looks up to meet his gaze.

"This one's mine."

"Mara," Castiel says, his mouth suddenly dry. She pulls the knife out of the back of the now dead demon and Castiel sees instantly that it's not just an ordinary weapon, it's the blade of an angel, the only think besides Chloe's sword that could actually kill him. Mara doesn't miss a beat, moving forward, her weapon now raised and aimed at Castiel. He sidesteps the attack easily, gripping her arm and twisting it behind her back.

"I've been waiting for this day for so very long." Mara smirks up at him, slamming her elbow into his chin, forcing him to release her arm.

They each take a few steps back, circling each other. "How does it feel?" Mara asks him, a wild sort of amusement in her eyes. "Knowing that once again you've failed."

"I haven't failed yet," Castiel says defiantly, assuming she's talking about the battle.

"Oh but you will," Mara tells him, glancing over her shoulder at Chloe then looking back at Castiel pointedly. "You can't protect her, not from this, not from what she has to do." Castiel's steps faltar and from the look on Mara's face, she saw it. "It's like de ja vu all over again isn't it? You finally have a chance to redeem yourself, but you can't save her from her destiny any more than you could have saved me from mine all those years ago."

"I don't believe in destiny," Castiel spits out in anger.

"You used to," Mara points out to him. "Remember? You believed that I was supposed to be turned, that it was my destiny so you did nothing to stop it. It wasn't that you _couldn't_ save me, it was that you didn't even try."

"What happened to you was not my fault," Castiel tells her. "I did my job and I did it well. I made sure that you knew how much God loved you and how much you meant to Him and I told you that you would be rewarded, either in this world or the next for you devotion. But that wasn't good enough for you." She charges at him again but once again he steps away from the attack. His eyes narrow, studying her, it's almost as if she's not even trying.

"The simple fact of the matter is, his offer was more attractive than mine. He promised you things that I couldn't, things that I wouldn't and you wanted those things, you valued those things more than you valued your faith and that was your mistake." Castiel shoves her to the ground and her smug expression faltars. "Humans are weak. They are petty and jealous and greedy. I may not have understood that then, but he did. So he told you what you wanted to hear, he prayed on your vulnerabilities, he manipulated you but in the end, it was your choice. There was nothing that I could have done, nothing I could have said that would have changed your mind. I am not to blame. I couldn't save you because you didn't want to be saved."

He thrusts his sword down but stops inches from Mara's throat when he hears her whisper, "I know."

"Then why do you hate me?" Castiel asks her.

"Because when you realized that you couldn't save me, you should have done me a favor and killed me," Mara snarled at him. "But you couldn't, even knowing how much pain and suffering I would endure you still couldn't do it. The fearsome angel Castiel who could fell cities with a flick of his wrist, couldn't even kill one single woman. Perhaps it's not only humans who are weak."

And she's right. He had known how much suffering she would endure at Lucifer's hands. Part of him had been bitter, bitter that she would choose Lucifer over God, chose Lucifer over him. He'd considered her pain a penance of sorts that she would get what she deserved. But a bigger part of him knew that no one, not even Mara deserved that kind of suffering and yet he could not bring himself to end it because to end it would have meant ending her.

It had been a selfish decision on his part, his first but definitely not his last. He had watched over her from the day of her birth, saw her become a formidable woman, helped her on her path to dedicate her life to God and protect her from evil to the best of his abilities and when it came down to, he simply couldn't bear being the one to take her life, regardless of what the decision would mean for her.

"I waited," she whispers to him. "I held on and I fought, all those years, because I knew it would be you." She makes no move to free herself from under his blade. "It had to be you," she begs him to understand and in an instant he does.

He sees now what the selfishness has wrought, what pain his own petty desire has inflicted on another and he feels shame. In her eyes he sees a life far too long over lived, a life that never should have been, a life that in some ways transpired of his own wrong-doing and he forces himself to do what he could not do all those years ago. He slams the tip of his sword into her throat, not stopping until he feels the blade lodge into the slightly damp earth beneath her, she smiles up at him and he returns the gesture. He understands now what he didn't oh so long ago, that by killing that which he swore to protect, he has finally managed to deliver her from evil. Suddenly, unbidden, Raziel's words from the day before echo inside his head.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_"Castiel." Raziel steps forward and Castiel hesitates. He looks to Chloe who smiles and nods. Hesitantly he walks toward the arch-angel. Raziel puts a hand on Castiel's shoulder and draws him in close, whispering furiously in his ear. "She will have an important choice to make in the very near future." Raziel cuts his eyes to Chloe. "This choice will not be an easy one for her, it will require from her all of the strength that she possesses, but no matter what, you must have faith in her to choose correctly." Castiel nods. "I know that you would like to follow her until the bitter end, but unfortunately once she has made her choice, you will have a hard choice of your own to make my friend and, like last time, I fear that your emotions will not allow you to make the right one. You must choose carefully, for what you want may not be what she needs." _

_Castiel's eyes cut to Chloe and his brow furrows but he nods once before stepping away. "I understand."_

_"It was good to see you again my brother." Raziel claps him on the back. "God speed." _

_Chloe watches Castiel walk toward her, a pensive, curious look on her face but she doesn't have the courage to say anything until they've made it out of the building. "What was that about?" She risks a quick glance at him. _

_"Nothing." Castiel shakes his head. "Nothing for you to worry about anyway." The pensive look is replaced with a genuine smile and Chloe offers him one of her own in return. "Do we have to get back just yet?" he asks suddenly and Chloe shakes her head. _

_It's been a while since it was just the two of them and even though there's so much to do, she wants to hang onto this moment as long as she can. _

_"Come on." Castiel says, grabbing her hand in his and pulling her to the right. _

_Before Chloe can ask him where they're going he's pushing her through the door to a building and she sees a long mahogany bar stretched out in front of her. _

_"A drink," Castiel says. "For old time's sake?" There's a wistful tone to his voice but under that there's something else, something Chloe can't quite place. _

_"For old time's sake." Chloe nods, climbing up onto the bar stool as Castiel makes his way behind the counter. He manages to find an unbroken bottle of tequila and two intact shot glasses. He pours a shot for each of them. _

_"Wait," he says, disappearing under the counter for a minute. He rummages around under the bar, re-emerging with a huge smile on his face and in his hand, two tiny umbrellas. He opens them both, plops one in Chloe's shot glass the other in his own then offers her a mock toast before downing the foul liquid. Chloe follows behind him, wincing at the taste and resisting the urge to gag. They both slam the now empty shot glasses on the bar top and let their gazes slide over to the half empty bottle on the counter. "One more?" Castiel asks her. _

_"Couldn't hurt." Chloe smiles._

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe spins around, her sword locking with another. The man has a self satisfied smug smile on his face that is achingly familiar to her. "Hello luv." The man winks at her. "Did you miss me?"

It takes her all but a second to understand. "Barbas?" she asks confused, sliding her sword to the right to free it from his. "Since when are you British?"

"Since someone killed my most favorite meat suit, I was forced to find another host." Barbas looks down at his new body. "The pickings have gotten a bit slim since last time. It took ages to find this one and it doesn't even fit right."

Chloe narrows her eyes at him. "I thought you guys could possess dead bodies."

Barbas wrinkles his nose in disgust. "And where exactly is the fun in that? I was very careful with that body, I nurtured it and cared for it and that deliciously agonized soul that it contained. I had great plans for that body."

"You tortured him," Chloe spits out. "You purposely kept him alive so that he could feel and see everything you did."

"You call it torture, I call it…breaking in." Barbas shrugs.

"I thought you were on our side now," Chloe reminds him of his words to her just two days before. "We've got reality TV and gossip magazines remember." She takes a swipe at him with her sword and he dodges it.

"Yes well the more I thought about it, I realized a few things. Reality TV is obviously ours, I mean you humans come up with some pretty deplorable things but even you're not that evil. Plus, you didn't want me and Lucifer made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"What kind of offer?" Chloe asks her tone slightly concerned.

"Well he's starting to get, now I wouldn't necessarily use the term worried, more like he's being cautious. There's been some suggestion that you might not have the balls to do what needs to be done," Barbas says, his eyes glinting greedily at her. He feints left and Chloe falls for it, moving to block only to leave herself wide open for the attack on her right. She stumbles back a bit and Barbas keeps on coming. "And if that really is the case, then he no longer needs you." He kicks out suddenly, shoving his foot into her chest and sending her crashing into a tree. Her back and head hit the bark hard and it dazes her for a second. He uses that opportunity to grab her wrist and spin her around, crushing her back against his chest, his arms circling her waist and holding her in place. "Which means you're no longer off limits."

Chloe suddenly gets it. Barbas couldn't touch her before, he had orders to keep her unharmed because Lucifer needed her. But now, believing that she might not in fact kill God, she's fair game. "He promised me that I could do the honors," Barbas whispers in her ear. Chloe struggles against him, trashing and jerking, trying anything to get out of his hold but for all her training, it comes down to the fact that he's simply stronger than she is.

"Do you have any idea how hard it's been to hold back on you for so long," he says, tightening his hold. Chloe can feel her ribs grinding together and can't help but cry out slightly in pain. "This is how I'd hoped it would end. Just me against you, my arch nemesis if you will." He takes a moment to sniff her hair and Chloe resists the urge to gag.

"Now I'm not really sure how exactly to kill you, hell I'm not even sure if you can be killed. But I do know that you can be hurt and I think you'll find that I'm so very good at that." As if to prove his point he squeezes even harder, lifting her slightly off the ground. Her ribs snap easily and then she can hear as well as feel a few of the bones in her spine cracking under the pressure and for a second her legs go completely numb.

"First of all," Chloe pants, blinking away stars from her vision. "That was the lamest evil villain speech I've ever heard." She doesn't give him a chance to respond, her legs are still numb so she uses her sword for leverage and plants it in the ground, twisting, spinning the both of them around and slamming Barbas up against the tree. It dazes him but doesn't loosen his grip any.

"Second of all," Chloe grunts and while he's still distracted, she brings her sword up in the air, holding it out as far as she can before spinning it around and aiming the blade straight for herself. She closes her eyes and pulls, piercing her own chest, using all of her strength to push the sword completely through her body and then further, through Barbas' chest until she feels it hit the wood of the tree.

"You're not my arch nemesis," she pants. All she receives in response is a strange sort of gurgle and she grips the end of the blade, pushing against the hilt. The sword slides out of Barbas first and then Chloe but it isn't until she steps away that his body crumbles to the ground. "You're not even in my league," she calls back walking away, not even bothering to look back at him.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Sam has been fighting the same demon for a while now and with a strange sort of clarity he knows that this is a fight he won't win. He accepts that fairly easily he thinks, under the circumstances. He accepts his inevitable death with a grace he didn't realizes that he even possessed until this moment. He's had a good run, he's fought the good fight and done it a lot harder and a lot longer than he imagined himself capable of. He's trained for this his whole life but even he knows that everything must come to an end. And he's okay with that.

His muscles feel as if they are on fire, his hands are stained red with the blood of countless others, but his soul, his soul is his own. His body is not a meat suit; he has not become one of them, the Hollow Men, as Chloe calls them. His mind and his body and his soul are his own and he'll fight with every last breath it contains, until his muscles are nothing more than mush and his bones ground to ash, he'll fight. Most importantly he's got Dean and they're together and if they die here, this day, then at least they die together, at least they die drawing free breath.

He feels every agonizing inch of the sword when it finally slides into his stomach. It's a shock at first, it feels as if it's made of flames but at the same time it burns so cold. The cold spreads to his bones and it freezes his lungs and each breath hurts as the sword is pulled back out, spilling out blood and guts behind it. He stumbles and he falls to his knees.

He hears Dean's scream from somewhere and Chloe is by his side in an instant, her hands already on the wound, telling him that he's going to be okay, even though she doesn't believe it herself. His hand moves to cover hers,

nd he pats them lightly, in what he hopes is a reassuring gesture. He wants to tell her that it's okay, that everything will be all right but he doesn't have the strength, he just hopes one day she can understand.

Sam looks at the fighting that's still going on around him and it's sort of humbling to know that his death doesn't stop the world from turning and at the same time, it's sort of great.

As he dies, he thinks;

_This is the way the world ends._

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean tries to force himself to turn away from the scene, focus on what's happening in front of him, on his own fight but he can't. Sam's body is dead and cold and too far gone for whatever healing Chloe might have left in her but he watches her try and he knows it's no use.

He didn't think Sam would be the first of them to fall, he always thought it would be him, running into danger head first, half cocked is always a recipe for a short life span. Or maybe he'd just always hoped he'd go first, so he didn't feel this, so he didn't see his brother's lifeless body, again. It's staring up at him, in silent accusation that only he can understand, spreading guilt that only he can feel; he's failed again.

And for a minute, one brief shining moment as he shoves a knife into the body of a man, Dean almost does it. This man could have been anyone, could have been a school teacher or a truck driver or a rocket scientist even before he became one of them. Dean slides the knife through flesh and muscle and sinew and then up into bones and lungs and heart, and as the warm life's blood of the man who could have been a sinner or a saint before this happened to him pours over Dean's hands, down his arms, drenching him to his elbows, he almost says yes.

He almost invites him in. The archangel Michael, the right hand of God. He almost welcomes him with opens arm and says_, "Fuck 'em, fuck 'em all,"_ because Sam is dead and he knows that the bodies of his friends are out there now, dying and rotting because the fight's been going for over an hour now and the odds that any of them are still alive are lower than Dean can think. He almost gives in, wants Michael to come down and just smite the sons of bitches but he sees Chloe and she's standing in the middle of the battle that rages on without her, around her. And her face is streaked with tears and her eyes are taking in everything and seeing nothing and her clothes are stained with Sam's blood and he breathes.

He promised her, and this is one promise that he intends to keep. He won't do it, even now, even at the end, he won't let them use him, turn him into a Hollow Man. He won't let them use his hands as weapons to end the world, use his eyes and his heart and his soul to destroy everything that he holds dear.

Then he feels strong hands grip his arm and spin him around. He fights. Even though he's tired he fights. Even though it's useless, he fights, because he also promised Chloe forever and he's not breaking that promise without a fight, and he's got so much fight left in him. Only his body is betraying him. His reaction time is getting sluggish, his vision slightly blurry. His left wrist was shattered some time ago and with every blow to his body, he can feel it beginning to giving out on him. A blow to the chest that he's not quick enough to dodge and his breath is suddenly gone, a shot to his knee and his legs crumble underneath him. He's lifted off the ground by the collar of his shirt and thrown across the field.

His head slams into something hard and cold and the pain is so intense he sees only white for a few seconds and the only reason that he keeps his lunch down is because he hasn't had a proper meal in two days.

He blinks rapidly, trying to catch his breath but he can't, a broken rib has likely punctured his lung. He does the only thing that he can at this point and stares up into the bright clear blue sky and prays for the rain. He can feel blood pouring out of the wound in his head, pooling around his ears, warming the back of his neck and he knows even now the offer is still there, all he has to do is say yes.

And he says no.

He says it out loud, just to make sure they heard him, to make sure there's no confusion and then Chloe's hovering over him. Her hands are in his hair and he says it again, "No." More forcibly this time but it's the answer to a different question. He's not ready to go. Not ready to say goodbye, he promised her forever. "I lo—" He can't say it, not because the words are too hard for him to say, he'd say them a thousand times over if he could but he can't, blood is pushing itself up through his throat and he stares at her helplessly, choking on the words.

"I know," she whispers. She kisses his lips gently and softly, like Juliet upon waking and finding Romeo dead, hoping against hope that there's enough poison left on his lips to let her to follow.

Dean closes his eyes before she pulls away so he doesn't have to see her cry, so he doesn't have to watch her watch him die and he thinks;

_This is the way the world ends_

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe pulls her lips from Dean's with a sob she's completely unable to control. She knew it was coming and yet somehow she was still unready for the terrible shock of pain that tore through her body as he expelled his last breath. She screws her eyes up tight, like a child in a nightmare, willing the bad images away, trying to trick her mind into believing that it's all just a dream but it isn't and she knows that.

She pulls herself to her feet staring around her at the other bodies there today, the other bodies that fought just as hard and just as long but somehow didn't deserve her tears quite as much. All of her friends are all dead or dying and she doesn't have a scratch on her. What's more, for all the talk of prophecies and destinies she is completely and utterly powerless to stop it. She sees him then, Lucifer, mere feet away, also untouchable, untouched, and just as powerless as she is trapped in his ring of holy fire. She knows it's the only reason this battle wasn't over an hour ago, the only reason that anyone is still alive. She doesn't know how long the oil will burn, how long his prison will hold and she wants to free him, wants to let him out if just to end it all.

Her hand instinctively goes to the chain around her neck and her fingers trail along the links until they hit the crystal pendant that dangles on the end. She stares up at the sky, not a rain cloud in sight and grips the pendant tightly in her fist, the sharp corners digging into her flesh as she allows herself to finally feel the anger she's been denying herself for so long and lashes out.

"I've done everything you asked," Chloe screams into the sky, falling to her knees. "I gave you all that I had. I trusted in you when I had no reason to and every reason not to. Are you happy now?" she yells through gritted teeth, not sure who she's even yelling at. "I don't know what more you could possibly want. You've taken everything; I have nothing more to give. I asked you, I begged you for help, just a little help and you give me nothing. I gave you everything and you give me nothing." She slumps, slightly defeated after a minute when no answer is forthcoming, but forces herself to her feet defiantly. "Why," she sobs exhausted, "why did you abandon me?" The accusation comes out, sharp and almost unbidden, leaving a sour taste as it passes from her lips and she pulls her gaze away in shame.

She finds Castiel, his eyes are boring into hers and she swallows because it feels like he's staring into her very soul and then suddenly he's done. The look on his face lets her know that he found what he was looking for and it also tells her that whatever it is, it's not good.

She opens her mouth to cry out to him, to ask him what he saw but no words, no sounds escape.

Thunder rips through the sky and lightening slams into the earth, surrounding Chloe. She can feel each strike travel through her veins, then she can't feel anything.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The fighting has stopped, Castiel sees that everyone seems to be frozen, all of them staring at Chloe, some in wonder, others in fear, and then the heavens open above them, and God weeps. The sky rips in two and rain pours down onto the field, fat heavy drops that wash away all the dirt and the blood. It drenches them all in an instant, pounding into the ground with a force they never could have expected, cleansing the battle ground, salting the earth.

Castiel looks around and sees that the fighting has started again, each side throwing themselves into it with renewed vigor. He sees Lucifer, a smile filling up his face as the rain begins to quench the flames of his prison. And then he looks back at Chloe, stares straight into her eyes, and sees nothing at all.

Something's changed, something's different but Castiel can't figure out what it is. Chloe's gone, her body is right in front of him, but she's not there. He doesn't know where she is, or if she's coming back. For some reason his eyes are drawn to Dean's fallen body and he notices a strange faint red glow coming from underneath Dean's shirt. His amulet, the one Castiel borrowed when he'd been on his quest to find God. It's glowing. But it can't be, because it only glows in the presence of God.

But that's not true, because it's glowed before, once before, the day Castiel stumbled upon Chloe.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_Castiel's palm is itching. He opens his clenched fist and looks down at Dean's amulet. It isn't glowing but it is doing something, something that's making his hand itch. Maybe he's close, maybe God is somewhere near, just not near enough. Castiel looks up around the park but nothing stands out at him, no matter which way he turns, the amulet does not give him any more hints, doesn't do anything really but his hand is still itching. _

_People brush past him, most of them on cell phones, he catches snatches of conversations but nothing that seems important so he closes his eyes and he listens. _

"_No, I need my dry cleaning picked up before two, I have a meeting this afternoon and huge mustard stain on my shirt." _

"_So I told him, if he wanted to spend his bachelor party at a strip club then he could spend his wedding day alone." _

"_And he yelled at me, like it was my fault the copier ate his precious presentation." _

"_I'm on my way now. I had to cut through the park, there's a robbery in progress at Metropolis First National." A soft feminine voice sounds above all the others and for some reason Castiel listens harder to this one. "No, you're not gonna make a quick stop, the police can handle it, besides, it's broad daylight and the last thing the Green Arrow needs right now is to make headlines in conjunction with a bank robbery. Look, you need to be on a plane to Miami in the next twenty minutes. I'm turning on my police scanner now, if I hear one peep that someone wearing a green shirt is spotted in a ten block radius of First National I will ground you so fast you'll get whiplash. No more missions, no more being in the field." The girl's voice is closer now and she laughs suddenly, a soft private laugh and Castiel opens his eyes, seeing her emerge from the crowd, heading right toward him. "You don't think I can do it?" She challenges whoever is on the line._

_The itching intensifies the closer she gets and Castiel must have gasped because she looks up at him suddenly then she frowns, reaches out and grabs his coat, pulling him toward her. The next second a bike zooms past him, clipping his hip and sending him spinning. She's still holding onto his coat so she goes spinning as well and they trip over each other as they tumble to the ground. _

_A second later she's up and brushing her pants off, screaming after the man on the bike as he doesn't even bother to stop. "Hey you want to pay attention?" she yells. "There are kids playing here." The man on the bike makes no motion to indicate he heard her or even cares and she turns back to Castiel. "You ok?" He nods and she holds out a hand. "Can you stand?" He frowns and then nods again and she pulls him to his feet. "Those bike messengers are a menace." _

"_Chloe!" A voice is screaming from somewhere and she winces searching the ground for her dropped cell phone. She finds it and rests it between her ear and shoulder as she picks up her other dropped things. _

"_Yeah I'm here." She says into the phone. "I'm fine, stupid bike messenger. You want to do something for the city, get rid of those guys." She stands and looks at Castiel. "You ok?" she asks again and he nods again. She smiles before walking away. His hand is burning now and he looks down to see that not only had he managed to keep a hold of the amulet but that it is now glowing bright red in his palm. He looks back up at the blonde woman, Chloe, and walks after her. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Understanding comes sudden and he turns his gaze back to Chloe with new eyes and he sees the crystal around her neck, also glowing, faintly. He gets it now, he gets it all. He'd been blind, he had to have been not to see. He was a fool, a faithless fool. He'd doubted, strayed from the path, he'd started to believe, like the others that God had abandoned them all.

It would be foolish to believe that he could ever fully grasp the infinite wisdom of God or the love that he had for his creations, but Castiel understands now that he wouldn't, he couldn't ever abandon them, not truly not fully. His Grace had been with them always.

Castiel is amazed that he hadn't been able to see it before, the crystal pulsed and sparked with his immeasurable power. His Grace is with Chloe. And it all makes sense, of course he left it with Chloe. She would keep it safe, she and she alone would do what needed to be done. Castiel himself has seen what God must have seen in Chloe; a hope for humanity, a promise for tomorrow.

Yet, he'd doubted his Father, his Creator. He hadn't understood God's plan but he does now.

He'd been blind, but now he could see.

And it was beautiful.

_I want to know, have you ever seen the rain_

_I want to know, have you ever seen the rain_

_Comin' down on a sunny day_

_-Creedence Clearwater Revival_


	19. Shelter From The Storm

**Shelter From The Storm**

_Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there_

_With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair_

_She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns_

"_Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm"_

Chloe spins around, suddenly confused, unsure of where she is. A second ago she was standing in the middle of the battlefield, surrounded by lighting and rain and now…well, now she's just surrounded by light. The room she's in, if it can be called a room is white. She tries to make out something discernible, anything in the brightness but there is nothing, it's like she's suspended in pure light. There is no floor, no walls, no tables or chairs, no windows or doors, just the white light and her.

For some reason she's not panicking though. She has no idea where she is, she has a sinking suspicion that she's not technically anywhere but it's okay. She knows that somewhere in Maryland a battle for the future of humanity is going on but somehow here, it doesn't matter. Her hair and clothes are still wet and she feels like she should be shivering but she's not. There's a comfortable feeling settling in the pit of her stomach, warming her entire body, making her feel…safe. She smiles.

She can see something now, off in the distance, a dark shadow, a shape. It looks like a person and it's walking toward her. She has no weapons in this place, no way to defend herself but she knows instantly that she doesn't need to defend herself, that this thing does not mean her any harm. "Chloe." The voice is smooth and light and…sort of familiar. Chloe squints again as the shadowy figure starts to take shape and she recognizes it instantly, like a punch to the gut.

"Mom?" Chloe says slowly and the woman smiles, holding out her hands toward Chloe.

Tears well up in Chloe's eyes unbidden and suddenly she can't breathe. She tries to remember if any of the lightening hit her, if somehow it managed to kill her when nothing else could and then she starts to panic. She can't be dead yet, there is so much more she wants to do, so much more she _has_ to do.

"You aren't dead." Moira Sullivan reaches out, cupping Chloe's cheek in her soft hand and Chloe leans into the touch, unable to stop herself. "And I'm not your mother, not really." Chloe opens her eyes at this statement and takes a step back, as if she's been burned.

The woman who looks like Moira but isn't Moira lets her hand fall slowly back to her side, not showing if Chloe's reaction hurt her feelings. "You need to know that I never abandoned you," Moira insists.

"You never what?" Chloe asks. "Who—" She stops, remembering the accusation she tossed at God. Chloe sucks in a deep breath and takes in the image of her mother. Her features are sharper than Chloe remembers from the last time she saw her. The wrinkles around her eyes and mouth are gone, old scars have been erased and her skin is practically glowing. It's not her mother, it's a too perfect version of her mother. "You're God?" Chloe asks slowly.

"Not exactly. I'm a sort of imprint of God, an echo or a memory if you will," Moira explains.

"I don't understand where are we? What's going on?" Chloe looks around the bright white room again.

"We are not anywhere," Moira tells her. "Well your body is still technically at St. Mary's but this conversation is happening in your mind."

"We're in my mind?" Chloe frowns. "What's happening to my body while we're in here? There's a war going on out there you know, you can't just leave me standing there defenseless."

"We could speak in here for hours and yet when you open your eyes, but a second will have passed," Moira tells her.

"OK, I understand that, sort of. What I don't understand is why you look like my mother," Chloe says, her voice stilted.

"I have no physical form here and rather than have you talk to a disembodied voice, I thought a familiar face would calm you."

"Well it's not working," Chloe snaps, angry that the woman in front of her is not her mother, _because_ she's not her mother and now all Chloe wants more than anything in the world is to talk to her mother one last time.

"I can choose a different form." Moira's face falls this time and when Chloe blinks Moira is no longer standing in front of her, instead it's Jimmy. He's smiling at her, his eyes bright and playful and it has the exact opposite effect of that which was intended.

"No, not him." Chloe recoils even more. "Anyone but him…just don't." There are tears falling from her eyes and Jimmy's face frowns in confusion.

"I'm sorry," Jimmy says, but before he can even finish the sentence he's not Jimmy anymore. Chloe has to blink a few times before she truly comprehends what she's seeing. Joshua is standing in front of her now, only not the Joshua she left back at the camp, the Joshua in front of her is in a full suit of armor. He's clad in chain mail, wearing a breastplate, rerebrace's and vambrace's and leather gloves. His blonde hair looks windswept and sun touched and she realizes it's exactly like his picture, the one that Beth sketched of him.

"What's this?" Chloe asks confused.

Joshua looks down, a little surprised himself to see the armor. "This is the form that you've come to associate with me."

Chloe stops and realizes that he's right. While everyone at the camp had been looking to Chloe to save them, expecting Chloe to save them, she'd been wondering who would save her.

The abstract idea that she was going to kill God had been just that, an idea, until Joshua showed up and the idea was suddenly that much closer to reality, it was now a possibility. His arrival had shown her something else though. He was no longer just God, a mythical, spiritual figure, but a tangible, living, breathing, innocent person. And no matter who she had become, she knew that she couldn't kill a living, breathing, innocent person. After that, it was like a weight was lifted off her shoulders.

Joshua had been sent to her and she wanted to believe it was so that he could save her, from doing something she didn't want to do. To save her from herself. Theoretically she could kill God, but there was no way she could kill Joshua. From that moment on she'd begun to look upon him as her savior, as her knight in shining armor and after she'd seen Beth's sketch the image had been cemented in her brain.

"Is this OK?" Joshua asks her cautiously.

"Yes, it's fine." Chloe nods.

"Sit," Joshua tells her. Chloe wants to point out that there is nowhere to sit when suddenly a table appears in front of her, chairs on either side of it. He pulls one out and sits, waiting for Chloe to do the same. "Please."

"I don't understand how you're here, how you're talking to me." Chloe sits slowly, steadying her palms flat on the table. "Where did this echo, or imprint come from?"

Joshua leans over the table, the leather of his gloves is cool against Chloe's skin as he pulls the chain around her neck out from under her jacket. He lets the crystal fall against her chest and then leans back in his seat.

She stares down at the crystal, picks it up, feels the weight and the warmth of it in her hands and understands. "This is...you in here isn't it?"

"In a way." Joshua nods. "When a demon possesses a human body, after a while, the strain takes a toll on that body eventually tearing it apart from the inside. Angel's vessels are different, they are special, made specifically to house the angels, but even those special bodies cannot stand up to the constant onslaught that the angel's grace inflicts upon them and eventually they too fail. An angel's powers are immeasurable and yet compared to mine, they are practically non-existent. There is no body that can contain my true essence so I had to strip it away."

Joshua pauses for a minute. "Remember what you said? _Everything that makes God God has been stripped away, all of his extraordinary powers, all his omniscience, all of his knowledge of what is and what will be, of what came before and what will come after, you have none of that_." Chloe nods. "Well it had to go somewhere."

"And it went in here?" Chloe asks. "Into the crystal you gave me, that I wear around my neck, as jewelry?"

"Yes."

"Why?" Chloe asks.

"Because I knew that you would keep it safe for me," he explains. "Because you are the only one who could."

"But why?" Chloe leans forward. "Why me?"

"While in the crystal my essence is contained, its effects limited. Yet it is still nowhere near enough for the average human to withstand," Joshua tells her.

"So then I'm not the average human?" Chloe looks up at him confused.

"Hardly." Joshua laughs and Chloe frowns. "It's not a bad thing," he rushes to assure her. "You have the unique advantage of being unlike any other person on this planet. Your blood is special. You are descendant from David, the King of all Kings, which in itself might have been enough but with you there is still more."

"My powers?" Chloe says.

"Your powers." Joshua nods. "Your ability to heal yourself lets you sustain continued contact with my essence. Your powers don't stop it from hurting you, they simply allow you to heal the damage before it becomes fatal."

"So I do have my powers back then?" Chloe asks. "But why can't I heal anyone else?"

"Your powers were always there, but they had been damaged by what the Brainiac did to you. Coming in contact with my essence is what healed your powers and then after that, your powers were used exclusively to heal you from the effect of my essence," Joshua says sheepishly. "It's sort of a Catch 22."

"So whenever I tried to heal someone, I couldn't because my powers were too busy healing me?" Chloe connects the dots.

"Yes." Joshua nods.

"It still doesn't explain me though," Chloe points out.

"How do you mean?"

"I've come back from injuries I never should have. I heal wounds, sometimes before they have a chance to even bleed. My powers have never worked like that before," Chloe says confused.

"The essence contained in that crystal, it has its own sort of consciousness, it's how I can be here talking to you."

"It's self aware?" Chloe asks.

"Exactly." Joshua nods. "And it knows more than anything that it must be kept safe. For it to be kept safe, you must be kept safe."

"So _it_ was healing me from the wounds while _I_ was healing me from it?" Chloe asks confused.

"Yes. The second I passed that crystal to you a connection was formed. When you became injured the crystal would heal those injuries. In the beginning that connection was still weak so it took a while. You may have died a few times before it had a chance to fix everything, thus, bringing you back to life. The more prolonged the contact however, the stronger the connection became and it could heal you practically instantaneously."

"And Bobby? How did that work?" Chloe asks thinking about what had happened earlier that day.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_Chloe had gone in to check that everything was set as far as weapons were concerned and she need not worry. She'd been right, Lucas had the place so organized, it took less than two hours to get everything together. It all seemed to be in pretty good shape, but it did nothing to quell the butterflies swirling around in Chloe's stomach. "And you've got stuff here? For you guys, just in case—"_

_"Let me go," Lucas screams from outside, cutting Chloe off mid sentence as the door swings open. Dean steps in the room, his hand gripping Lucas' shirt by the collar as he pulls the boy in behind him. _

_"Look who I caught trying to sneak onto one of the jeeps." Dean smiles. _

_"She said it last night," Lucas protests and turns to Chloe. "You said that whoever wants to fight can fight." _

_"Except for you," Chloe clarifies. "And Lucy. Whoever wants to fight can fight except for you and Lucy. You two want to get together moan about how unfair life is?" Lucas just glares at her. "I'm still the boss so if I say you can't go, you can't go." _

_"Chloe!" Lucas pleads. _

_"Lucas." Chloe stares at him then walks over behind Bobby's chair and lays her hands on his shoulders. "Look, Bobby's not going either and I'm sure he's come to terms with it." Bobby just nods. "Though I have a feeling he's not going to be so OK with it in a minute." _

_"He's not?" Dean asks her confused. _

_"I'm not?" Bobby asks looking at her over his shoulder. _

_"No, you're not." Chloe lifts her hands from his shoulders and grips the handles on the back of his wheelchair. She jerks it back and tilts it forward in one smooth motion, effectively depositing Bobby to the ground. _

_"What the hell!" he screams indignantly at her. _

_Lucas hurries to his side but Chloe holds out a hand to stop him. "Get up," she says staring down at Bobby. _

_"I can't." He glares up at her. "I wasn't rollin' around in that thing for the hell of it you know." _

_Chloe crouches down and stares straight into his eyes. "Get. Up," she repeats, staring him down and Bobby swallows hard before leveraging his weight onto his arms and pushing up. He pushes even harder and his face turns red and when Lucas is sure he's going to give up and tear Chloe a new one his left leg twitches. He stops and looks down at it then back up at Chloe. She smiles at him in encouragement. He concentrates harder and his leg twitches again. He stares down at it and it starts to move, sliding along the floor until his knee is bent and his foot is flat on the ground. He turns to the other leg and concentrates on it until it's in the same position as the first one. "Now, get up." Chloe pushes herself to her feet and watches as painfully slowly, Bobby does the same. _

_She smiles at him, eye to eye for the first time. Bobby stares at her in astonishment then looks down at his legs. _

_"Bobby." Dean smiles up at him then takes two quick strides and pulls the other man into a hug. "You can walk," Dean says, tears stinging his eyes as he pulls away._

_"I can walk?" Bobby asks, still a little bit in shock. He tries moving one foot in front of the other and his knees give out. Chloe and Dean jump forward to steady him and she lets out a sharp laugh. _

_"Not yet." Chloe helps him into the nearest chair. "You'll have to get your sea legs back first." _

_"You healed me?" Bobby asks her. "Just like that?" _

_"Just like that." Chloe nods. _

_"Your powers are back?" Dean narrows his eyes at her suspiciously. _

_"Not exactly," Chloe says._

_"I'm not sure I follow, if your powers aren't back then how did you heal me? How did you even know you could?" Bobby asks her. _

_"Chuck dreamed that I healed you, so I healed you." Chloe shrugs._

_"Did he dream that you healed anyone else?" Dean asks her carefully. _

_"No, just Bobby." Chloe shakes her head._

_"What's so special about me?" _

_"I've got no clue," Chloe says. "Especially since this doesn't really change anything." _

_Chloe's previous words suddenly come back to Bobby and he stares up at her. "I'm still not going." _

_"Nope." Chloe smiles at him. _

_"Wait a minute, you fix my legs, then tell me I can't go to the biggest freakin' battle in the history of the human race?" Bobby asks her. _

_"That is exactly what I did," Chloe agrees. _

_"Why?" Bobby growls at her._

_"Because I need you here in case I fail," Chloe tells him seriously. "Because I need to go in there knowing that if something happens to me, I've got someone back here to pick up the reigns, to take care of those that stay behind and keep fighting those we don't take down with us. You know more than Oracle, you've got more experience than Dean, you're more authoritative than Oliver but more importantly I trust you to do what needs to be done. You are my last line of defense." _

_"Yeah, OK." Bobby nods. "I can do that." _

_"As for you," Chloe turns to Lucas, "I need him here. He needs you here. You're staying. Plus I promised your brother I'd take care of you so this is me, taking care of you." _

_"Yes ma'am." Lucas nods at her then holds out his hands. Chloe doesn't even ask what he wants, just pulls the sword from its sheath and passes it over. "Why is it so impossible for you clean this?" _

_"Because you do it better." Chloe ruffles his hair and he ducks out from under her in annoyance. She reaches out, grabbing his collar and pulls him back toward her. She presses a kiss to his forehead and this time he doesn't try to get away. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"I healed him right?" Chloe frowns. "I mean I wasn't even trying, I didn't actually do anything, I just…I knew he'd be healed because Chuck wrote that he was healed and he _was_ healed but…I didn't do anything."

"You healed him," Joshua says. "Or really I healed him."

"How?"

"At some point I think the connection became symbiotic. The crystal learned through you and in return you appear to have gained access to some of its powers. I believe you drew on them on a subconscious level, probably didn't even realize you were using them. With Bobby, you needed him to be healed so he was healed."

"And why did I need him to be healed?" Chloe asks. "I mean it's not like he was coming with us, he wasn't going to fight. I fed him that bullshit about being my last line of defense which is true but really I just wanted him to feel better about getting babysitting duty and if anyone could do that from a wheelchair Bobby could, so why would I _need_ him healed?"

"It wasn't about healing him, it was about everyone else knowing that you'd healed him," Joshua explains.

Chloe pauses and thinks back. She's fought with these people, side by side, she's trained some of them but still, none of them had pushed as hard as they had today, none of them had taken the risks that they had today, and they pushed that much harder, took those risks because they knew if something happened Chloe would be there to fix them. And this was it, this was their last chance so Chloe needed them to push the envelope, needed them to take those risks. "Why worry about dying when you know there's someone there to bring you back to life," Chloe whispers.

"Exactly," Joshua says.

Chloe stares at the table top for a minute. The wood feels dry and splintered under her hands. It feels substantial. She runs her fingers along the planks and a splinter pierces her skin, sliding into the pad of her forefinger and she winces. It feels real. But it's not real, it's in her head, she's in her head. What's real is what's out there, in the real world, the fighting and the killing and Lucifer just a few minutes of rain away from being free and unleashing hell on earth and yet she is in no hurry to get back there, to get back to the real world. She still has questions and this may be her only time for answers. There's so much more that she needs to know. She pulls the splinter from her index finger and stares at it for a second before dropping it to the table top and looking up at Joshua.

"You knew," Chloe recalls the conversation she had with Father Mac. "You knew this would happen. You knew before you left, that _if_ you left, the angels would take advantage of the situation and allow the demons to go through with their plans."

"Yes," Joshua says.

"So then, you allowed it to happen?" Chloe stares into his eyes, daring him to tell her that she's wrong.

"Yes," he answers her with a curt nod.

"Why?" Chloe begs. "Why would you leave, why would you let them do this, why would you make us go through all this?"

"This is not the first rebellion, nor will it be the last," Joshua explains slowly. "Do you think that in the millennia that Lucifer has been imprisoned behind the seals he's never tried to escape?"

"There have been apocalypses before?" Chloe frowns, wondering what the plural of that would be, Apocali? She looks up into the amused face of Joshua and blushes, as if he'd been reading her mind.

"No, _this_ has never happened before," he assures her. "It has never gotten this far because I have never allowed it to go this far."

"So why did you allow it this time?" Chloe asks. "What was so different about this time?"

"You," Joshua says simply with a happy smile on his face and Chloe can't remember if she's ever seen the real Joshua smile like that. "It was because of you."

She wants to cry. She wants to curl herself into a tiny little ball and rock and back and forth until this is all over. It's one thing to blame yourself for something but for God to come out and blame you, it's entirely different.

"Don't think of it as blame. I know it seems like it, but it's not a bad thing," Joshua says reaching out and patting Chloe's hand softly.  
"How can being the cause of the apocalypse not be a bad thing?" Chloe asks.

"Do you know why I like humans so much?" Joshua asks. "Why I created you, why I love you above all else?" Chloe shakes her head wishing she knew the answer. "Free will. It's a wonderful thing isn't it?" Joshua takes a deep breath and smiles. "And because you have free will, everything has to be your choice and I have to respect that choice or else there is no point is there?" he points out. "The angels and the demons are doing this because it is what they do, it is what they have always done, and what they will always do. But you, the humans, you have a choice. So if I were to let this play out, I would have to rely on you to make the right choice and then I would have to live with the consequences of that choice. I never had a reason to believe that you would choose correctly, that you would choose good over evil, right over wrong, until this time."

"What changed this time?" Chloe frowns. "Why did you suddenly allow us to do this?"

"Because this time I had faith," he tells her.

"In humanity?" Chloe snorts. "Obviously you haven't been watching the news the past few decades."

Joshua smiles indulgently. "Not faith in humanity, faith in you," He says. "The angel's aren't wrong. Humans on the whole are dirty, vile despicable creatures, I can admit that. But humans individually, well they have the capacity to be extraordinary. And when just one of them has even the tiniest spark of that, it can spread to others around them like wildfire."

"I'm no one special," Chloe protests. "Even if I am descendant of David and Solomon, that doesn't mean anything." She shakes her head tears falling from her eyes. "I've killed people."

"I know." Joshua nods, watching her without judgment or condemnation.

"Innocent people," Chloe corrects herself. "And I'm not just talking about here, I'm not just talking about now, about the demon possessed or the Croatoan infected who had no choice in the matter. I'm talking about before all this. I'm talking about Sebastian Kane," Chloe sputters thinking of the boy whom she killed in cold blood to protect Clark. "I'm talking about Davis Bloom." She thinks of locking him in that cage and flipping that switch, flooding the chamber with liquid Kryptonite. "It may not have worked, but the intent was still there," Chloe protests.

"I know, Chloe," He interrupts her. "I did not choose you because you are a saint," He points out. "I chose you because you are a sinner. I chose you because of everything you've done, not in spite of it."

"I don't understand." Chloe sobs.

Joshua smiles and the table is gone, they're no longer sitting in the white room. She's standing in downtown Metropolis, it's daytime, early morning by the looks of the commuters who seem to be rushing off to work. One person in particular captures Chloe's eye and she has to do a double take as she recognizes the woman walking down street in front of her, as herself. "What is this?"

"This is the day; this is the moment it all began, the moment I decided to put my trust in you. The moment I knew you would make the right choice," He explains.

Chloe watches intently following herself as she walks down the street in a daze, she watches a familiar man get out of a cab with a baby carrier in his arms. She sees him stumble, sees his bag break and then she sees herself stop to help. The man's name springs to mind suddenly. "Stephen Temple." She smiles at the long forgotten memory and wonders what happened to him. She thinks harder, remembers giving his information to Emil, remembers him promising to look into it, and do whatever he could but she never got a chance to follow up. She realizes that even if Stephen's wife pulled through the likelihood that any of them made it through the first stage of the virus was slim to none.

She shakes her head, she doesn't want to think about that. She forces herself to focus on what's happening in front of her. They're sitting on the stoop now, talking and she doesn't understand. This wasn't that important. It wasn't any big deal.

"Oh but it was a big deal," Joshua corrects her. "It was a big deal to him, and it was a big deal to me."

"I picked up his stuff." Chloe shakes her head. "I sat with him for ten minutes."

"You helped him," Joshua says, "when you could barely help yourself. When you didn't even care enough about yourself, you cared enough about him, a stranger, to stop and help him, to sit with him."

"But I didn't…I mean I wasn't trying to do anything, I wasn't trying to help him I just…"

"Exactly." Joshua nods encouragingly. "I love it when people do good deeds in my name, I feel honored I really do. Especially because most of the time they do so many bad things in my name. But you know what I really love? When people do the right thing just because. When you stopped to help him you weren't trying to earn karmic points, or get into heaven, you were just helping him. The rosary that you gave to him. It didn't mean a thing to you, it didn't mean a thing to him, not from a religious standpoint anyway. So when you gave it to him, it had nothing to do with me. It was all about what it represented to you, what it meant to you, because of what it meant to Jimmy."

"As far as you were concerned it held no spiritual value, it had no mystical powers or purposes, it was nothing more than a few beads strung together with a sliver cross hanging off it. The only meaning it had to you was that it belonged to Jimmy, it was important to him, it reminded you of him. When you gave it to Stephen, he didn't see it as some great religious symbol, he saw it as something that was important to you and the fact that you would give something that important to a perfect stranger, made it important to him."

"So I give him a necklace and you start the apocalypse?"

"No, you sacrificed something important to you, for someone you'd never even met for only the vaguest hope that it would offer him some of the relief that you yourself were sure you'd ever find," Joshua says. "It was so much more than just giving him a necklace and you know it." Chloe nodded. "And then you went with Oliver to Paris and you were passing out new lives so I took advantage of the situation and I created Joshua's body then you created his life and then, it was all in your hands. Literally, from the moment I passed you that crystal, I stopped being God and started being Joshua." Joshua took a deep breath. "The next week, Dean stepped off the rack, broke the first seal and the rest as they say is history."

"What if I hadn't stopped?" Chloe whispers. "What if I had gone a different way or left later or earlier or simply just ignored him like everyone else on that street, what would have happened then?"

"What do you mean?" Joshua asks her.

"You know what I mean," Chloe tells him.

"Nothing," Joshua tells her honestly. "I would have sent the angels down after Dean before he could step off the rack and break the first seal. He would have gone on to heaven and the rest of the world would have just kept on like it always did, oblivious."

"And what's so wrong with that?" Chloe asks desperately.

"It's not that it was wrong, it just wasn't right," Joshua says. "It wasn't the life you were meant to have. Castiel would never have needed to come to earth, Dean would never have been resurrected, you never would have met either of them. You would never have fallen in love."

"So it's all worth it then? The world goes to hell but it's okay because Chloe fell in love." She snorts. "That's not a good enough reason." The lie makes her ill even as she says it because as noble as she would like to be, she knows that if she could do it all over again, for just one more day with Dean, she would damn the world to hell. "Give me a better reason."

"Because you wouldn't have gotten the choice," Joshua explains.

"Screw the choice," Chloe snaps.

"I can't," Joshua says. "Do you have any idea how many times I want to? I want to all the time, but I can't Chloe I just can't."

"Right, because free will is so important, because humans are so good at making the right choice." Chloe laughs bitterly.

"I'm not delusional, I know that 90% of the time free will causes more harm than good. Humans are not known for their stellar track record when it comes to picking right over wrong. Just look at Eve." Joshua snorts a bit. "But every now and then they do choose right over wrong, they choose good over evil and because _they_ made that choice, it's beautiful," Joshua says.

"What about the people who don't choose?" Chloe asks him. "What about the good people who have bad things happen to them?"

"Ask me about who you want to ask me about," Joshua says.

"My mother," Chloe admits, tears wetting her eyes. "What about her?"

"Your mother did make a choice," Joshua says to her sadly.

"She chose to get infected by a freakin' meteor rock that turned her into a freak? She chose that?" Chloe challenges him.

"No but what happened after, she chose that," Joshua points out. "She chose to leave you because she wanted to protect you."

"And what did that get her?" Chloe asks, wiping her eyes. "She went insane. She spent the majority of my life in a catatonic state."

"And she knew that her choice would come with consequences but she made it anyway. If she were here right now she would tell you that she didn't regret it and she would make the same choice again in a heartbeat. You know that," Joshua reminds her.

"If she were here right now," Chloe says, swallowing hard, "could you fix her?"

"Yes," Joshua answers. "But I wouldn't. Because I respect the choice that she made and to change even one bit of it would diminish its meaning."

Chloe nods. "What about the thousands of people every day that get cancer?" she asks. "What about Stephen Temple's wife, she didn't choose that."

"So now you want me to cure cancer?" Joshua asks.

"Yes." Chloe glares at him, leaning across the table.

"No." Joshua glares right back, leaning toward her.

"You can't?" Chloe challenges him.

"I won't," Joshua admits.

"Why?" Chloe pleads with him.

"Because I want _you_ to cure cancer." Joshua leans back in his seat. "And you are what with Chemotherapy, Radiation therapy, laser treatments."

"Those aren't cures." Chloe shakes her head.

"No, not yet, but it's more than you had twenty years ago and you're learning something new every day." Joshua cringes. "Or rather you were. And it's not just cancer. Do you have any idea how many advances in other medical areas have been a direct result of cancer research?" He pauses for a second, then smiles. "What about Oracle?" Joshua says apropos of nothing.

"What about Oracle?" Chloe asks, confused by the sudden chance in subject.

"You created her didn't you? You created a computer program made up of lines of code and equations and you built her out of circuit boards and wires and computer chips. Then one day, she starts to think for herself, she starts to learn, she starts to grow and when she come across a problem not solvable by her original program parameters, she rewrites her original program parameters. Now she can do things you never imagined, or intended for her to do. Isn't it amazing to you?"

"I suppose," Chloe agrees cautiously.

"I mean sure, with time and hard work you could have written a piece of code or updated her programming to do the same things but the fact that she sought it out herself, that she figured it out and changed it on her own doesn't that make it ten times better? Doesn't that make you ten times more proud?"

"Yes," Chloe admits honestly. As much as Oracle annoys her, there are moments Chloe is in complete and utter awe of the program and how much it's grown. When she sat down all those years ago in the Watchtower and started to write the base programming on her old trusty laptop, the idea that one day her program would be asking her about human souls, would be aware enough to know that she did not have one, and then to be afraid of what would happen to her without one, was unimaginable. Every time Oracle circumvents a part of her program Chloe is proud in a strange sort of way.

"I could do everything for you, I could take away your choice. I could let you wander through life knowing that everything was all laid out ahead of you already, that your whole life was planned out and plotted and there was nothing for you to do but enjoy the ride. Nothing bad would ever happen and there would be no surprises and you would be…"

"Bored," Chloe says, stunned at the realization.

Joshua smiles. "You would be meaningless. Your lives would be meaningless. You need to be able to choose, and those choices need to matter. You need to have that power because nothing you do would mean anything if you knew that it could all just be erased, like it never happened. That I was just going to come in and fix whatever you screwed up. Would you want to live like that? Like nothing mattered?"

"No." Chloe shakes her head.

"No," Joshua affirms. "I didn't create you because I wanted you to act out a play that I wrote. I created you because I want you to write your own play. I want you to grow, to learn, to explore. I want you to create things and discover things and cure things because that's what you do."

Joshua smiles at Chloe. "You discovered fire and forged weapons, then ventured out and found new lands and you kept going, all the way to the ocean and then beyond until you'd pioneered the West. Manifest Destiny, I love that. You created medicines and technologies, steam powered engines and then cars and boats and planes. I didn't make you with wings, but you taught yourself to fly. You conquered the skies and when that wasn't enough, you went the moon. All of the achievements you made were yours and yours alone and I want you to make more, I want you go beyond the stars and who knows, someday maybe colonize another planet. I want _you_ to cure cancer."

Chloe nods because she does understand. She thinks of Oliver and of how she teased him constantly because he sucks at being a rich person, but it made him a better person. She finally understood what he'd been trying to tell her all those years ago. He didn't throw his money around. He knew that he had enough money to sit on a yacht in the middle of the ocean and do nothing except drink and party all day long for the rest of his life if he wanted but he didn't. He worked hard to keep and expand the empire his Mother and Father created for him because if you have everything handed to you, you don't appreciate anything.

"So what happens now?" Chloe asks, lifting her eyes to Joshua slowly.

He at least has the decency to frown. "You know the answer to that."

Chloe closes her eyes in pain and swallows hard. "He's just a kid," she whispers.

"He was never just a kid." Joshua shakes his head.

Chloe opens her eyes and stares straight into Joshua's. "I promised him," she says, practically pleading, begging for him to give her another way, an out.

"I know." Joshua reaches across the table and grabs her hand.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_Chloe slips out of the bedroom while Dean dresses, unsurprised yet again to see Chuck sitting in front of Oracle's screens. "Hey," she says, pulling the door closed behind her, making sure it clicks shut. _

_"Hey." Chuck turns around. His face is pale and the dark circles under his eyes are so prominent it looks like he hasn't slept in weeks, months even. She cautiously takes a few steps toward him and he thrusts a stack of papers out to her. He doesn't say anything the look on his face says it all. _

_Chloe takes a deep breath and grabs the pages. She looks down at the first line and feels the bottom drop out of her stomach and begins to read aloud; _

"The world is going to end today.

This is not a hyperbole.

This is not the wishful thinking of a despondent teenager.

This is not the desperate threat of a raving mad man.

This is simply a statement of fact.

For five years it has been my duty to chronicle the events of the end of the world and I have done my duty. I have written down everything. Everything they wanted me to write. Everything except for this.

For longer than five years I have known how this journey will end. I dreamed it as a child, before I knew how much dreams could really mean. As I got older somewhere in the back my mind, I came to realize it was more than just a dream but I didn't want to admit it out loud. Even after I knew what I was, what I could do, I dreamed it. And I have dreamed it every night since I came to be in this place, but still I've never written it down until now.

The world is going to end today. Just as soon as the rain starts.

I do not write these words lightly. These days I do not write anything lightly.

"_What the prophet has written can't be unwritten. As he has seen it, so it shall come to pass." _

I never wrote it down because I knew that writing it would set the events in stone. Writing it down would turn it into history before it even has a chance to become the present. I suppose I thought, naively, that as long as I didn't write it there was a chance, the smallest sliver of hope that maybe someone or something could come along and change it.

I know better now. It was always going to end this way. Lucifer was always going to rise and the world was always going to fall. There is no stopping it. There is no last minute rescue. No hero to save the day."

_She sits down and keeps reading, silently to herself this time. When she finishes she has to take a few deep breaths before looking back up at Chuck. "So this is the way the worlds ends?" she asks him quietly and he nods. She closes her eyes, screws them up tight, the images laid out before her in Chuck's straight forward prose are seared into her memory, and they haven't even happened yet. But they will, Chloe knows that they will, she knows that no matter what she does from this moment on, the story on this paper will unfold just as it's been written. "Why did you have to show me this?" she asks, allowing a tear to roll down her cheek. _

"_I thought it would be better if you knew," Chuck admits. _

_Chloe opens her eyes and stares at him. "How? How could it possibly be better to know?" _

"_Because." Chuck swallows. "Because I think there's a difference in doing the right thing regardless of the consequences, and knowing the consequences and doing it anyway." _

_Chloe knows he's right. It doesn't take a lot of courage to do something, the courage comes in knowing the outcome, and doing it anyway. She stands up and takes another deep breath before passing the pages back to him. "You don't show him this. You don't show this to anyone but especially not Joshua do you understand?" _

_"Chloe, you can't do that." Chuck takes the pages back. "You promised him that you would always tell him the truth."_

"I made him a lot of promises. I also promised him that he would have a normal life. I promised him that I could give him a normal life. I promised him that I would take care of him. I promised him that I wouldn't kill him. Some promises you have to break." Chloe stares at Chuck.

_"Hey, everything okay?" Dean asks from the doorway to the bedroom. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"So that's it then?" Chloe asks. "What the prophet has written can't be unwritten, as he has seen it, so it shall come to pass?" Chloe looks up at Joshua. "How exactly does that fit in with free will?"

"But it does," Joshua says softly to her. "If Chuck had never shown you those pages, never told you what he saw you doing, you still would have done it. You don't do these things because Chuck writes that you do. Chuck sees what you will do and then he writes about it."

"So then Castiel was wrong and Lucifer was right, all along," Chloe says. "I was always going to kill God, not heal him."

"Don't you understand?" Joshua says. "Castiel was right. And Lucifer was right. God is broken," he corrects himself. "The parts of him are separated and the only way to end this, to heal him, is to reunite those parts in heaven.

"But a part of him is in Joshua." Chloe understands.

"The most important part." Joshua nods.

"His soul," Chloe finishes. "And to send his soul to heaven…" She stops, looking up at Joshua. "To heal him, I have to kill him," she whispers.

"Yes." Joshua offers her a sad smile.

Chloe understands now, she knows that it's the only way, and yet she also knows that she still has a choice.

On the surface, she knows that's what it looks like, that killing Joshua is the easy way out but it's not. Killing one single human to spare the rest, it's seems obvious in a way, much easier than scratching and fighting and living out the rest of your life in a hostile hell, but it's worse, so much worse.

She could choose not to do it. She could choose to go back and continue to fight and keep her promise to Joshua. If she does that she will lose, Lucifer will win and the world will be forfeit, but she still has the choice. It doesn't matter that it's a crappy choice, the option is still there. She also knows that she won't, she knows that she'll do what needs to be done. She knew what she was going to do this morning, even as she did everything she could to prevent herself from doing it.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_It's a strange feeling, walking through the camp. It's bustling with activity, a lot more activity than usual, but at the same time it's quiet, eerily so. Everyone's got their heads down, intent on their tasks, and not saying a word. She can see Jo running around, getting things done. When she gets to Emil's she opens the door slowly and just observes for a while. "Should I bring the morphine?" Joshua asks Emil, holding a hard case in his hands. _

_"No." Emil shakes his head. "You're going to need to work fast and any injury they can survive they can deal with the pain. It will leave you more space in the bag for gauze." _

_Joshua stares at the box for a second before discarding it and grabbing another handful of gauze. "How many suture kits?" Joshua turns to a shelf._

_"Use the staples, they're quicker and you can bring more." Emil walks to the back of the room and grabs a few boxes, tossing them to Joshua who catches them expertly and stuffs them into the bag. _

_"What's going on?" Chloe finally makes herself known and walks into the room. _

_"I'm just trying to pack my bag, make sure I've got everything I could possibly need." Joshua turns and grabs a few more packages of gauze._

_"Joshua," Chloe says, her tone slightly pitying. _

_"Chloe, I can do this." Joshua leans over the table. "I can't fight, I'm useless with a weapon but I can do this." He zips up the bag angrily._

_"Take a walk with me." Chloe holds out her hand and Joshua looks at it, as if it might be full of diseases before reluctantly sliding his palm in hers. Her fingers curl around his and she stares at their intertwined hands for a second, a better left forgotten image from Chuck's dream, springing front and center in her mind. She shakes her head to get rid of the picture and she tugs at him slightly, pulling him to the door. _

_They make their way through the camp ground and onto the forest path, Malachi trailing happily behind them. "You're not going," Chloe tells him, finally breaking the silence.  
_  
_"I am," Joshua argues. _

_"You're not." Chloe closes her eyes. _

_"Emil can't go, you need him here incase—" Joshua doesn't want to think about why they need Emil. "He can't go so I have to." _

_"It's not going to happen." Chloe stops, finally reaching her intended destination and turns to him, dropping his hand and shaking her head. "You don't even realize, Joshua, you're too important. More important than me, more important than Dean or Sam and I don't care what Chuck says, I don't care what he dreamed, I'm not going to risk—you're staying here at the camp."_

_"Chuck saw didn't he?" Joshua asks her after digesting what she'd just let slip. "He saw what you're going to do." _

_"It doesn't matter." Chloe brushes him off. "Because you're not going. You're going to stay here, right here." She glances up at the chapel. "Where I know you're safe, because I need to know you're safe, otherwise this has all been for nothing. Everything I've done, everything I believe, it was all for nothing and I can't handle that, not today." _

_"Tell me," Joshua whispers. _

_"No." Chloe shakes her head. "Just stay here, promise me you'll stay here." _

_"This isn't fair, I know I can help and you won't let me and you won't even tell me why," Joshua points out. "It concerns me just as much as it concerns you. You're being selfish." _

_"I am," Chloe agrees. "For once I'm being selfish. I am asking you to stay here where it's safe. For me. I am asking you to live. For me." _

_"OK," Joshua whispers, because all the time he's been here, all the stories he's heard, he can't remember the last time Chloe asked anyone for anything, just for herself. Everything she's done has been for everyone else, so Joshua thinks it won't be too hard to do this one thing for her. Chloe opens the chapel doors and pulls Joshua in after her. _

_"Just wait here for a minute." Chloe pushes him into the edge of the last pew and then kneels down in front of the dog, grabbing his face with both hands. "I need you to stay here okay? You stay with Joshua and you keep him safe." Malachi whines at Chloe, bringing a paw up to her arm. "I'll be fine. You stay here." Malachi licks Chloe's cheek and she stands up. The dog looks at her for a second before walking over to Joshua and sitting down in front of him, on guard._

_Chloe smiles and walks up to the front of the chapel where Father Mac is standing at the altar, his head bowed down in prayer. "Did you say a little prayer for me?" Chloe asks him._

_He lifts his head and turns around. "I said a little prayer for everyone," he assures her. "Maybe I said an extra one for you." _

_"I need a favor from you, it's nothing big just something for my own piece of mind," Chloe tells him. "I need you to make sure that he stays here." Chloe motions over her shoulder at Joshua. "I don't want him anywhere near that fight today, I don't want him to step foot out of this church. Can you do that for me?" _

_"Of course," Father Mac assures her. "Now I need a favor from you, just something for my own piece of mind." Chloe frowns but motions for him to continue. "Have you ever been baptized?" _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"What's going to happen?" Chloe asks. "After," she clarifies. "What's going to happen after?" Joshua looks at her sadly. "Because I'm not going to be there to see it am I?

"Chloe." Joshua shakes his head.

"Because the two parts, they have to be reunited." Chloe grabs the crystal and holds it in her palm. "And if I kill Joshua—" She swallows hard. "When I kill Joshua, that will free your soul. But the rest of you will still be trapped in here, so it's got to be freed." Joshua nods. "And I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who can do that." She closes her palm around the crystal. "You said it's contained while it's in here, barely. I'm special, I'm supposed to be able to handle it but it's still tearing me up just as fast as my body can heal itself. So I have to think that when it's unleashed, whoever's at ground zero is going to be nothing more than…air," Chloe breaths out.

"I'm sorry," Joshua says. "If it helps, I'm sorry."

"I know," Chloe assures him, a tear falling down her cheek even as she smiles. "So I need you to tell me what's going to happen. I can do this but I can only do this if you tell me that it will make everything alright."

"It will end this," Joshua promises her. "But nothing can make everything alright."

"You can." Chloe laughs but holds up a hand to stave off the inevitable rebuttal. "But you won't. I know and that's okay. Because ending it, that's good enough."

"Is it?" Joshua tilts his head and studies her.

"It'll have to be." Chloe nods, wiping the tears away. "There's just one thing I don't understand. If you had such faith in me, if you knew that I would make the right choice why didn't you just tell me all this from the beginning?" She stares at Joshua. "Why do it now? Why wait until this moment to tell me? Why wait until now to help me?"

"Because you never asked. All this time and you never asked. You never needed me until now," Joshua says.

Chloe remembers begging, screaming for help, remembers dropping to her knees and screaming at the sky. "I needed you," Chloe disagrees. "I needed you, I may not have known it, but I needed you, and you abandoned me."

"There's that word again. Abandoned. I didn't abandon you." Joshua shakes his head.

"You left me hanging out there, with nothing. I was all by myself. I had to figure out everything by myself. That's a lot to put on one person. You should have helped me, I needed you to help me. I trusted you to help me," Chloe argues.

"I did. I know you can't see it but I did. I never abandoned you Chloe as much as you want to believe that I did," Joshua says.

"You stopped being God, that's the very definition of abandoning me," Chloe says.

"But I didn't," Joshua says. "If you really think about it Chloe, you'll know that I didn't."

Chloe does think about it. She thinks long and hard then remembers the too perfect image of Jimmy standing in front of her and something in her brain clicks. "It was you." She looks down at the crystal in her palm. "My dreams. They started after Joshua gave me this. I thought it was Jimmy, well I thought it was me, but it was you, all this time."

Joshua nods. "All this time. I thought you might need someone, someone you trusted, someone you felt you could talk to who wouldn't judge you, who would just listen."

"You convinced me to stay with Dean, you convinced me to take the fight to them, and then you convinced me to keep fighting, when I wanted to give up you wouldn't let me," Chloe says, then stops remembering a dream from so long ago, one of the first, a dream she'd almost forgotten. "You convinced me to give Cass a chance."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_"I don't need an assistant." Chloe grabs for the large pillow on her side of the bed and tosses it to the floor. _

_"You do actually," Jimmy says, mirroring her. "You work too hard." _

_Chloe rolls her eyes and grabs for the corner of the bedspread, folding it down to the foot of the bed. "Not you too. You're a figment of my imagination, you're supposed to be on my side. You always take Oliver's side." _

_"I'm not a figment of your imagination." Jimmy shakes his head, pulling back the covers and sliding into the bed._

_"Right, you're a part of my subconscious." Chloe freezes. "And if you're a part of my subconscious and you always take Oliver's side, does that mean that subconsciously I always take Oliver's side?" she asks in horror as she slides into the bed next to him. _

_"I'm not taking anyone's side." Jimmy laughs. "What's so bad about an assistant exactly?" _

_"What's so bad?" Chloe scoffs. "He's going to come in and he's going to touch my stuff and mess with my filing system. I have a very exact filing system and I hate it when people touch my stuff." _

_"Your filing system is alphabetical. It's not like it's some secret code or something," Jimmy reminds her. "And you'd be his boss." _

_"Oh like that means anything, I'm everyone's boss." Chloe scoffs. _

_"OK, fine." Jimmy leans up on his elbow. "So forget about boss and assistant. He won't do your filing or touch your stuff. Maybe he could just…be your friend." _

_"My friend?" Chloe asks. The word feels foreign on her tongue. _

_"Yes, your friend." Jimmy kisses her forehead. "You do remember what friends are don't you?" _

_Chloe shoves him away playfully. "Of course I remember what friends are. I do have friends you know." _

_"Fine, but maybe with this one, you don't hack into his e-mail and monitor his cell phone GPS, keep track of his Netflix queue" Jimmy jokes. _

_"Okay, but how else am I supposed to be friends with someone if I don't know what's in their Netflix queue?" Chloe smiles. _

_"You could start by talking, over a cup of coffee," Jimmy offers._

_Chloe lets out a very put upon sigh. "Fine. Oliver did say he makes a mean cup of coffee." _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"I maybe helped to guide you in the right direction." Joshua shrugs.

"Free will and all that." Chloe smirks.

"You wanted to stay with Dean, you just wanted someone else to tell you that your instincts were right. You were itching to take the fight to them, you had been since that day at the Watchtower you were just waiting for an excuse. And you never wanted to give up, not really, you were just tired, tired of being strong. You just needed someone to tell you that you could do it, someone who wouldn't think you were weak for thinking you couldn't," Joshua explained. "I never forced you in one direction over the other, I just told you what you already knew. I was just there for you."

"But you weren't." Chloe shook her head. "Having dreams, it's not the same thing. I was by myself. You left, you weren't there."

"You're right, I wasn't there, but I left you with everything you needed. You weren't by yourself Chloe, not by a long shot." Joshua shakes his head. "You had Oliver and Dean and Jo and Lois and a whole camp full of people to help you. You had Castiel and Chuck and even Father Mac to guide you."

"That's not the same thing," Chloe whispers, "and you know it."

Joshua smiles at her warmly. "This reminds me of a story. A flood is going to wipe out a small town so the people start to evacuate. A jeep full of people is driving through the town when they see a man on his porch. _"Hop in, the flood will be coming in any minute,"_ they say. The man on the porch shakes his head. _ "Don't worry about me,"_ he says, _"I have faith that God will save me."_ Soon the waters begin to roll in and the man is now stuck on his roof. A rescue team drifts by in a boat_. "Hop in, we'll get you out of here,"_ they say. But the man shakes his head. _"Don't worry about me,"_ he says, _"I have faith that God will save me."_ Not too long after that, the flood waters have covered the roof and the man his hanging onto his chimney. A rescue crew in a helicopter comes by and drops down a ladder. But again the man refuses help, insisting that God will save him. The waters continue to rise and the man drowns. When he gets up to heaven, he meets God. _"What happened?"_ God asks him. _"I don't know."_ The man says confused. _"I had faith that you would save me and you didn't."_ God shakes his head. _"I sent you a Jeep, a boat, and a helicopter, what more did you want?" _

Joshua leans closer to Chloe. "I sent you a Priest, a Prophet and an Angel, what more did you want?"

Chloe opens her mouth to answer, but she stops. The light around them is slowly getting brighter, she's having a hard time seeing Joshua, the light is blinding her and she blinks until she can't see anything anymore. 

_Now there's a wall between us, something there's been lost_

_I took too much for granted got my signals crossed_

_Just to think that it all began on a long-forgotten morn_

"_Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm"_

_-Bob Dylan_


	20. What If This Storm Ends

**What if This Storm Ends**

_What if this storm ends, and I don't see you_

_As you are now, ever again_

_The perfect halo, of gold hair and lightening_

_Sets you off against, the planet's last dance_

_Just for a minute, the silver forked sky_

_Lit you up like a star, that I would follow_

_Now it's found us, like I have found you_

_I don't want to run, just overwhelm me_

**May 5, 2012**

Chloe is slammed back onto the battlefield, thrown back into her body without warning. She can feel the rain again, see the fighting going on around her and though it felt like she was gone for so long she knows without a doubt that in reality it was only an instant, less than a second even. The ground is still smoldering from where the lightening hit it. Her gaze is still locked with Castiel's and he notices the change in her instantly, and she in him. The despair from before is gone, there is strength and fire in his eyes. She knows now what she has to do, so she tears her eyes away from Castiel's and she runs.

Her legs pump faster and faster, the rain is turning the ground to mud which makes it harder but she just pushes more, for all she's worth. She doesn't even check to see if Castiel is following because she knows he's following, because he always follows.

_**March 13, 2010**_

"_What is this?" Chloe asks when he slams the brochure for the Metropolis Botanical Gardens on her desk. _

"_It is a natural oasis in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city," Castiel says, "or at least that's what the brochure says."_

"_OK," Chloe says. "And why is the brochure on my desk?" _

"_I want to go and you are coming with me." Castiel spins her chair around. "And do not say we have too much work to do because I finished the filing yesterday." _

"_You're not supposed to do the filing, I have a very specific system," Chloe reminds him. _

"_Yes. You use the alphabet," Castiel says unimpressed. "The others will not be back from South Africa until tomorrow."_

"_Cass, really that's sweet but I really don't—"_

"_Chloe, what is the point in spending all of your time saving the world, if you do not ever live in it?" He stares her down and eventually she relents, grabbing her bag and heading for the doors. _

_The grounds are surprisingly beautiful, Castiel has seen a few more beautiful in his time but not many. They're wandering around the grounds, trying to decide whether to visit the Zen Garden or the Rose Garden next when Chloe stops, turns to Castiel with a smile on her face, then takes off running in the direction of the tree line, Castiel has no other option but to follow. _

"_Chloe!" Castiel takes off after her. Branches slap him in the face when he hits the tree line and he's finding that his lungs are beginning to hurt from the strain, but it doesn't matter. He's running, running faster than he's ever run before, harder than he's ever run before, harder and faster than Jimmy's body has ever run before. He isn't running for his life. He isn't running out of fear or panic, he isn't running for necessity, he is simply running. _

"_Come on Cass, you can do better than that," Chloe calls from somewhere in front of him. He scoffs, he can overtake her in a second if he wants to, he can blink and be standing two yards in front of her but this isn't about that, this is simply about running. He pumps his legs harder, his feet digging into the ground as a fresh burst of speed propels him forward. He can see her now, if he reaches out a hand he can touch her. She turns her head and is surprised to see him hot on her heels. _

_He can't help it and lets out a cry of laughter and she follows suit. He pushes forward, grabbing her around the waist and spinning her toward him. Only they're going too fast and it causes the both of them to lose their balance and fall to the ground in a spectacular heap. The Gardens are situated on high ground, they'd been running right at the edge of the slope and when they hit the ground, they immediately began to roll down the hill. _

_Without pausing to think, Castiel wraps himself around Chloe's body, trying to protect her. His laughter dies in his throat as panic sets in and then they hit the bottom and stop. "Chloe?" He pulls away and looks down at her. "I'm sorry, are you okay?"_

_She stares up at the sky, a stunned expression on her face, before it splits into a huge grin. "I'm perfect." She turns to him a brilliant smile on her face, and he can't help but smile back, collapsing to the ground in relief. He starts laughing and then she laughs and soon neither of them can stop._

"_Why did you run?" Castiel pants and turns his head to look at her. _

_Chloe shrugs. "Seemed like a good idea at the time." She rolls over and sits up on her side, looking down at Castiel. "Why did you follow?"_

"_I always follow you," Castiel says sheepishly, rolling over on his side to look into her eyes. "And I always will," he promises and even as the words come out, Chloe knows that they mean so much more than she could ever comprehend. _

**::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

Chloe can see her destination up ahead now, the chapel. It's not much further and she digs deep down for another burst of energy, for some previously unknown reserve of speed and she goes faster. Her feet slide a little when they leave the muddy grass and hit the slick wet cobblestones of the courtyard but a hand steadies her at the base of her spine. It's Castiel, he keeps her upright and she keeps on running. When she gets to the doors of the chapel she doesn't slow, she grabs for the handle and swings them open, running down the marble hall until she reaches the chapel.

He's there, exactly where she told him not to go, exactly where she knew he would be. He's kneeling in the front pew, eyes closed, hands clasped praying. "Joshua," Chloe breathes out, his name echoing around the empty sanctuary and he slowly turns to her. "What are you doing here?" She takes two more steps into the chapel but Castiel stays back, letting her do this, standing guard at the entrance.

"Chuck showed me the pages," Joshua says calmly, far more calmly than he should be at this moment. "I know what you have to do."

Chloe nods and takes another two steps, she's halfway to him now. Though he says he knows and he seems to be taking everything very well, she still makes her way to him slowly, as if one wrong move could frighten him. On the other hand she runs the risk of taking too long to get to him and have him come to his senses. "How did you even get here?"

"Maybe you brought me here, or maybe I brought me…I'm not really sure how it works," he says, cutting his eyes to the crystal around her neck.

"I know the feeling." Chloe laughs despite herself. She knows there is still fighting outside, that people are still dying and that even now the rain is killing the fire, washing away the oil and each second that passes is just one more second closer to Lucifer being freed. It seems ridiculous to sit here calmly and rationally and have a conversation like this but she needs to know, she needs to be sure. "You have a choice in this you know."

"I know," Joshua says as she reaches his pew. "And that's sort of the point isn't it?" He slides over allowing her to sit and flashes her a brief smile.

"I suppose." Chloe thinks briefly that this is all too civilized, far too civilized.

"It's not like I actually had a life in the first place." Joshua shrugs with cold detachment.

"You had a life." Chloe swallows in a futile attempt to keep from crying.

"A life you made me," Joshua reminds her. "It wasn't real, none of it was real."

"It was real." Chloe clenches her fists and sets her jaw. "You had a girlfriend, I didn't make her up." Chloe turns to him. "You had a job and a life and it was real, _you_ are real," she says passionately. "You are flesh and blood and sinew and bone and you have a heart that beats." She lays her hand on his chest, right above his heart and a tear pools in the corner of his eye. Joshua brings his hand up to cover hers. "You have a soul," she says, her own tears now falling as she twists her fingers with his. "You had a life and it was more than real, it was yours, all yours."

"It was wasn't it?" He smiles at this and drops their intertwined fingers to his lap.

"You could keep it," Chloe offers. "You could keep this body and live the rest of your life and die on your own terms."

"What kind of life would I be living?" Joshua asks her. "What kind of life would I be forcing everyone else to live? Besides, like you said I have a choice. So it is sort of like I'm dying on my own terms."

"Yeah." Chloe takes a deep breath and nods. "I guess it is."

"You have to do the hard part anyway," Joshua says bringing his free hand up to wipe her tears away. "I just have to stand there."

Castiel steps into the room then, walking up to the front of the chapel. "It's time," he says and Chloe nods.

Chloe watches everything happen as if she's merely a spectator. Time seems to slow forcing her to take in every agonizing detail, the look on Joshua's face, the trust that he bestows upon Chloe as she takes his hand and leads him to alter. There is another stone basin, identical to the one at the chapel entrance and Joshua stares into her eyes as Castiel scoops up a handful of water and Chloe leans Joshua's head back.

"Ego te baptizo in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti*," Castiel says, letting the water drip over Joshua's forehead. He closes his eyes and squeezes Chloe's hand and Castiel repeats the act two more times before Chloe helps Joshua stand back up right.

He blinks as the water drips down into his eyes, but makes no protest as Chloe pulls him away, toward the altar and she has this sudden image of him as a doe eyed lamb, following her with blind devotion to the slaughter. She wraps her fingers around the hilt of her sword and draws it from the sheath at her back. Her knuckles turn white as she squeezes so hard and the sword starts to shake from the strain. A hand covers hers, stilling the movement, and she takes a deep breath, looking up at Joshua who has tears in his own eyes now. They're sliding down his cheek mixing with the baptism water and he nods at her, offering her a watery smile.

She nods and he releases her hand. She takes a step back then plunges the sword forward before she has time to think about it, before she has time to stop herself and it slides into Joshua's chest in one sure, swift, motion. He gasps but doesn't cry out. His heart's blood is pouring out of him, pooling up and over the hilt, making Chloe's hands slick with it.

"I'm sorry," she tells him, over and over. His hand reaches out blindly, his fingers grasping, clasping onto the front of her shirt. He uses that leverage to hold himself up and pulls her down toward him. Her free hand wraps around his back, keeping him steady as his lips brush against her ear.

"I forgive you." He gurgles before using the last of his strength to pull away slightly and place a soft kiss to her forehead.

And then it's done. His chin slumps down to his chest, his hand goes slack, falling from her shirt and dropping lifelessly to his side. His legs give out and Chloe can no longer support his weight on her own so she lowers him to the ground, leaning him up against the stone of the alter before standing and stepping back. She stares at him for a minute and then pulls the sword free from his chest with a sickening pop. She reaches down and closes Joshua's eyelids then stands straighter and turns to find Castiel right there at her side.

She gasps then, sucking in oxygen, a strangled sob of a breath that seems to still the very air around them. Castiel stares at her as the sword slides from her fingers to the ground, its purpose now served, its job now done. Chloe brings her hands up to his cheek drawing his attention back to her and he doesn't even realize that he's crying until she wipes away the tears.

He's crying for the death of a man who never really had a life to begin with, he's crying for the death that Chloe has just suffered, for the piece of her that died when she took the life of a truly innocent person. "It's okay," Chloe tells him, reassuring him with a soft smile on her face. She wants to explain it to him like it was explained to her, but she can't, she doesn't need too, he'll understand when it's over and hopefully then he can forgive her. "It'll be okay," she promises him with a conviction she did not have ten minutes ago, with an assurance that she knows now she can back up.

She removes her hand from his cheek and brings her thumb up to his forehead. She traces the sign of the cross on his skin in Joshua's blood then pulls him down and kisses it, smearing the blood onto her own lips. "It'll be okay," she says again and turns away, walking out of the chapel and back to the battlefield.

She stares straight ahead, not watching the fight around her as she puts one foot in front of the other. Her eyes stay glued on Lucifer , still imprisoned in his holy fire. He takes in the blood on her hands and the tears in her eyes and he smiles. He smiles the smile of the victor. It's smug and self assured and everything about it makes Chloe want to throw up everything that she's eaten for the past three months. He has every right to smile because she's done exactly what he said she would do. She's just killed God.

She takes one step and then another. She steps over Oliver's dead body with no recognition. She heads for the flames and as she approaches them she doesn't stop, doesn't slow. A demon jumps in front of her and she realizes too late that she has no sword but then Castiel appears, in all his heavenly glory which is only overshadowed by his very earthly rage. He's slashing down angel and demon, whichever is in her way, making her a path.

She falters slightly when she reaches Dean's body but it's not Dean anymore and she has no more tears to cry. She stands, just stands in the field, in the wind and the rain. She stands in the blood soaked grass and she watches them.

She sees the bodies of Jo and Ellen off to her right as if they fell one after the other, which is good so that mother didn't have to live very long without daughter. She sees Victor, Archer, countless others whose faces are slightly familiar but whose names she never bothered to learn. Bart zips past her but he's only still alive because he's faster than they are but he can't run forever. She sees but barely registers when Lois falls, horribly, all she can muster up is amazement that she's lasted this long.

Clark can muster up more than that and he retaliates with the force of ten thousand men, the blue kryptonite ring long since abandoned, but still it's not enough, it'll never be enough because even he is tiring, even he is wounded, bleeding and broken.

She ignores all of this though and moves forward. She steps right through the flames and they're not hot and they're not cold and Lucifer steps back, amused, confused, but not concerned, just making room for her. He's won, she's killed God and as soon as he can get out of these flames, the world belongs to him.

They stand there and they stare at each other and Chloe's hand goes to the necklace around her throat, clutching the crystal in her palm and Lucifer's eyes flash bright in surprise. She pulls, breaking the chain easily. It slides through her fingers and to the ground. Chloe rolls the crystal around in her hand, the crystal that she knows now isn't really a crystal, its so much more than that.

"You don't have to," Lucifer says to her when he realizes, when he knows that it's not over, that it's not won yet.

"And that's sort of the point isn't it," Chloe repeats Joshua's words to him. And she _doesn't_ have to. Free will and all. That thing the angels hate and the devil loves, which will now be the devil's down fall and the angels' salvation.

"You know, I feel sorry for you. I didn't really understand before, but now I do. You're nothing more than a child," Chloe tells him. "You're a spoiled little child and you did something wrong and daddy yelled and punished you and that should have been the end of it. But instead of taking it like a man, instead of forgiving, you're being petty. You're acting out, begging, pleading for his attention. This is your temper tantrum. This whole thing has been nothing more than you jumping up and down saying, "Look at me, look at me, look what I can do." But he's not looking is he?"

"You don't know what you're talking about." Lucifer glares at her.

"Go ahead then," Chloe tells him. "Give me the speech. Tell me about how you're the victim in all this."

"It's true." Lucifer smiles at her and she smiles back, much to his annoyance. "All I ever did was love Him, I loved Him too much."

"Yeah you know I've heard that one before." Chloe nods, pretending to think. "Usually it's on one of those stupid crime shows. That's the excuse that every crazy stalker guy gives after the cops find him bathing in the blood of his ex-girlfriend while wearing a necklace made from her teeth. _'I loved her too much'_." Lucifer looks less than pleased by the comparison. "I've got news for you. That's not love, that's nowhere near love. It wasn't love, it was obsession. It was jealousy and selfishness that got you where you are. You couldn't handle the fact that he loved us more than he loved you. You hated it, it tore you up inside and he knew and didn't even care. If you'd loved him, truly loved him you would have done what he'd asked and been happy about it. Not started a revolution."

"I lived for him," Lucifer snaps at Chloe, his tone practically desperate. "He was my purpose, my reason, and then you came along. Humans with your free will and the entire world as your playground, a beautiful pristine world and he loved you, loved you more than us, loved you more than anything and what do you do? You ignore him, you take this beautiful gift and you squander it, you destroy it. "

"So now it's our fault?" Chloe raises her eyebrows.

"Yes," Lucifer snarls at her.

"No." Chloe shakes her head. "This was never about us, or even about him. This was always about you. You couldn't bear the thought of sharing him with us, of having your love shared with us because it was yours, _he_ was yours. But even if we'd never have come along, if he had never created us, one day you still would have done what you did. You still would have rebelled. Maybe one day the other angels would have gotten more attention. Or maybe he would have started to favor Michael, your own brother, over you. The outcome would have remained the same; with you cast out of heaven, cut off from the love you claim to so desperately need. And the only one to blame is yourself."

"How could you know? How could you even possibly understand, come close to understanding the love I had for him," Lucifer spits at her. "You could never love him the way I did. _You_ don't even love him at all."

"You're right," Chloe says to his surprise. "I'm not sure if I love God yet. I'm still getting used to the liking him as a friend thing. But I do love. I love so much that I'm afraid sometimes it'll come spilling out of me and I won't be able to stop it. I love my friends, and my family. Lois and Clark, Lucy and Victor and Bart and Oliver and…Dean. I love Dean. I love him so much that sometimes I can't breathe for the weight of it."

"What do you know about love?" Lucifer scoffs at her.

Chloe thinks about Jimmy and still even after everything there's a sharp pain, right in her heart. It doesn't last long and now it brings a smile to her face instead of a frown but it's still there because he was there. It will always be there because he will always be there. She moves her thoughts onto Dean and instead of pain she lets a feeling of warmth bubble over her, coursing through her veins, settling in her bones and she smiles. "I know about love," Chloe whispers to Lucifer.

"You know nothing. You can't. There's no way that your simple little human brain can possibly comprehend the purest, greatest love that has ever existed. Humans are not capable of real love," Lucifer tells her.

"But we are." She nods. "We are capable of so much love, it's indecent. The only thing greater than our capacity for evil, is our capacity for love. The problem is we don't understand it, it scares us most of the time and we try to ignore it because we think it'll just complicate things, but it doesn't." She looks up at him. "It makes it better, makes it all clearer, makes it all worth it."

She reaches forward, and this time it's Lucifer who flinches away from her. She smiles at him, grabbing his face with both of her hands and kissing his forehead. The blood on her lips, Joshua's blood, wipes off onto his forehead, soaking into his pores. "I forgive you," Chloe whispers against his skin.

She pulls back and looks to see that there are actually tears in his eyes. With all the strength left in her body, before she can change her mind, she throws the crystal that's not really a crystal to the ground and time slows.

Chloe has a brief fleeting moment of regret. There are so many things that she's never done. She's never cooked a Thanksgiving dinner or climbed the Eiffel Tower. She's never had salt water taffy or gone to a rodeo. She's never swam naked in the cean or built a sand castle or had sex on the beach. She turns her head to look at the space where Dean's body lay and she smiles because for one brief moment she had him and next to that nothing else matters. And then the crystal that's not really a crystal shatters against the ground.

In an instant, the world stills around her. Everything freezes and Chloe smiles because it really is going to be all right.

_This is the way the world ends_, Chloe thinks as her vision starts to fade. _Not with a bang but a whimper._

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean gasps, big thick suffocating gulps of air. He sucks it desperately into his lungs and looks around wild eyed. He can't believe that this has happening again. The ground around him is wet but the sky is a brilliant bright blue, the glimmer of a rainbow blinks in and out of the corner of his eye.

He takes inventory of his body and can't seem to find a single injury which is preposterous because he knows, he remembers dying. He remembers feeling the blood drain into his ears and slide down his neck. He felt his life slip away, he knew the feeling, he'd felt it before, it wasn't any more pleasant the second time around. There is only one plausible explanation. "Chloe," he breaths out, pushing himself up on his elbows.

He looks around and sees that the field is littered with bodies; all of them are just like him, flat on the ground. He doesn't know if they're dead or alive and he doesn't care because he can't see Chloe. "Chloe!" he screams out this time, scrambling to his feet.

"Dean!" Sam yells from behind him and he turns around. Dean breathes out, relief flooding out of every pore of his body. Sam is pulling himself to his feet a few yards away. He looks around confused, relieved but alive.

"Sammy," Dean says stepping over bodies. Bodies of the people he fought alongside, fought against, fought for. "Oh God, Sammy." Dean yanks his brother into a hug, holding onto him like a life line, only pulling away long enough to check that he's really there, that he's really alive. "I watched you die again."

"I know." Sam laughs and his voice is still slightly afraid. "I watched myself die. It was a bit surreal." Dean laughs and pulls him into another hug. "What happened?"

"Chloe," Dean says unsure. "I think, I don't know. I haven't…" he trails off, looking at something beyond Sam's shoulders.

"You haven't what?" Sam looks at his brother confused.

"Seen her." Dean pushes past Sam only to stop. Sam turns around and follows Dean's line of sight. Castiel is standing at the edge of the field. He's standing still, completely still, staring at something on the ground.

"Dean," Sam asks concerned as his brother walks up the hill toward the angel.

Sam stares around at the field. Something feels different, he feels different, the very air feels different but he doesn't know why, he can't figure it out. He watches as the people begin to wake up, and help the people around them to their feet and stare around in wonderment. He recognizes most of them as hunters and soldiers. He sees the angels stumble to their feet, unsure, looking around in confusion. Even the Kandorians are all there, pulling themselves up and checking each other over. Sam notices very quickly that there is something missing however.

"Where are the demons?" Oliver asks from his side and Sam turns to the other man, a smile on his face.

"That's what I was just thinking," Sam says, clapping Oliver on the back. He turns around and catches up to Dean who's just made it to Castiel's side. "They're all coming back Dean, well not the demons, I mean they seem to be conspicuously absent, not just the demons but their vessels as well," Sam tells him. "But everyone else is coming back to life, all of them."

"Not all of them," Dean says, his voice broken and Sam looks down where he's looking and sees Chloe. She's lying in a tangle, her arms and legs at impossible angles, her eyes closed and if this were a different place, a different time Sam might be convinced she's simply sleeping.

But the ground around her is scorched in a perfect circle, the aftermath of the ring of holy fire. Chloe is in the middle, alone.

Dean falls to the ground, his hand reaching out to her neck, his fingers deftly searching for a pulse that he knows he's not going to find. "Why isn't she waking up?" Dean asks. He looks up to Castiel for the answer because Castiel always has an answer but the angel looks just as confused as he is. Dean notices that they've gathered a crowd now, it seems everyone who woke up is standing there, staring down at Chloe, a lot of them are crying but most of them are staring at her body in disbelief.

Wordlessly he gathers her body in his arms, pushing himself to his feet and he turns, heading for the chapel. He's not sure if it's a lack of something better to do or a real and honest concern for Chloe but they all follow him. No one says anything but one by one they step in line behind him and they follow.

When he gets to the building he has to stop to take a deep breath, remembering the last time he was in this place, when Sam killed Lilith and Lucifer rose from hell. Everyone stops behind him but Sam steps up and pulls open the doors. Dean smiles in relief and heads down the corridor. With each step he grows more confident. He's not delusional, he knows that Chloe is dead he can feel the lack of pulse in her veins, her skin is already growing cold and clammy and yet he can't stop. She's come back from worse, he's watched her come back before, so why not this time.

He steps through the doors of the chapel and walks down the aisle. Castiel freezes at the doorway, staring inside the room in confusion. Everyone ignores him, walking past him as they follow Dean into the room. The altar is empty, there's no body, no blood, no evidence at all that Joshua was even in this room, much less that he died in this place.

Dean stops at the front of the aisle and steps up to the altar and lays her down gently, arranging her just so until she's exactly the way he wants her to be. He drops a kiss to her forehead then steps back and sits down in the front pew before lowering his head to his hands.

"What are you doing?" Sam asks, sitting down next to him.

"Praying." Dean looks up at him defiantly. Sam simply nods and bows his own head. Dean smiles and continues on. He doesn't notice when Lois sits on his other side until she slides her hand in his and squeezes, he doesn't notice as one by one the people file into the other pews, all of them silent, all of them respectful as they bow their own heads and they pray for the woman who gave them a second chance.

Dean doesn't remember much after that. He remembers Lois, a constant at his side, her hand warm and comforting in his. He remembers hearing people get up and leave, remembers hearing some of them come back. He sees things out of the corner of his eye, registers snatches of conversations every now and then.

"It's all back to normal?" Sam asks Oliver, the tone in his voice is a mixture of confusion and amazement.

"Like nothing happened." Oliver passes Sam a Starbucks coffee, an actual paper cup of coffee from an actual Starbucks. "The stores are all open, kids are playing in parks. No one's even heard of Croatoan." But when Dean looks up at Chloe's still body he knows it's not like nothing happened, it's not back to normal.

Minutes pass, maybe hours, maybe days. He eats what Lois tells him to, he's pretty sure he sleeps, at one point he'd found his head resting on Lois' shoulder, her fingers lightly running through his hair. She's whispering nonsense words into his ears, telling him it's okay. His cheeks feel wet but he doesn't remember crying.

At some point Bart is there, standing in front of them. He's talking so fast, almost as fast as he runs and Dean has a hard time following what he's saying at first. "They're alive," Bart says. "They're alive." He practically collapses against Oliver.

"Who?" Oliver frowns at him.

"Everyone." Bart brushes him off. "Everyone's alive, but don't you get it, so are _they_." He stops and takes a deep breath. "I went to the Watchtower because, I thought if all the stores came back and the parks and the cars, then maybe it came back too and it did. Then I thought that everyone here came back, so maybe they came back and they did." His words start to come faster and faster the more he talks. "So I went inside and _they _were there," Bart says happily.

"Who?" Oliver asks again.

"AC and Dinah," Bart tells him. "They came back Oliver, everyone came back."

Dean wants to shout at them because everyone didn't come back, because Chloe didn't come back. He doesn't though, because he's happy, he's glad that AC and Dinah are back, glad that Sam and Lois and Oliver are back, glad that he's back but it doesn't mean anything because Chloe didn't come back.

"If AC and Dinah…" Lois says beside him, her voice is so quiet, so gutted that Dean has to close his eyes for a second. "If they came back and they weren't even here…if they came back then maybe…"

And then Dean realizes, she's not thinking about Chloe, she's thinking about her Dad, she's thinking that maybe if AC and Dinah came back then her dad must have too. He turns to look at her and smiles. "Go," he tells her softly. She looks at him startled, it's the first time he's talked in days. Her gaze drifts from Chloe back to him but he shakes his head. "Go," he says more forcefully this time. "If your dad's alive, if there's even a chance—you should go."

Lois leans over and places a soft kiss on his forehead before sliding her hand out of his and standing up. He hopes she finds her dad, he really does but he still feels a pang. He doesn't understand why everyone else is getting their happy endings and he's not.

Someone takes Lois' place on the pew beside him and he doesn't have to turn his head to see who it is. "How long are you going to do this?" Castiel asks him, his own eyes trained straight ahead on Chloe's body.

"I don't know," Dean answers truthfully. He wants to say until she comes back to him but even he is losing faith in that now.

"She won't get better, Dean," Castiel tells him. She's come back before, but this time feels different, everyone knows it. They've told him that this time she's not coming back, they've all told him, and he didn't want to believe it, but now hearing Castiel say it, it almost physically hurts him.

"You don't know that," Dean tells the angel.

"I do," Castiel counters. "She won't get better, she can't get better, not without—" He cuts himself off then and turns to Dean. "She's dead, gone, she won't come back this time."

"I don't believe that." Dean swallows and grits his teeth.

"This is not a matter of belief," Castiel says and even _he_ can see the irony in him uttering those words.

"Yes actually it is," Dean says defiantly because everything else in his life the past few years have been a matter of belief, so why not this.

"You love her don't you?" Castiel asks him and Dean can only nod because to say the words would hurt too much. "Was it worth it?" Castiel frowns. "Even now, was it worth it?"

"Loving her?" Dean asks and Castiel nods. "Yeah, yeah it was. What are you even still doing here?" Dean coughs, trying to change the subject. "Heaven's open again, all your little friends left days ago. I thought you'd be on the first train back."

"I had a decision to make before I go," Castiel tells him. "A very important decision but I think I know what to do now. You've been very helpful. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Dean says confused as Castiel stands up. He steps up to the alter and places a soft kiss on Chloe's cheek before turning back to Dean and nodding once, then he's gone.

Dean's not sure how much time passes after that but suddenly Chloe gasps, her body frantically sucking in air. They rush to her side and wait, but her eyes don't open and her body doesn't move. And yet now she's breathing. Dean stares, transfixed at the constant, shallow, rise and fall of her chest and it doesn't matter that she's not moving and she's not waking because five minutes ago she wasn't breathing but now she is.

He can hear them arguing around him. Oliver demanding that they bring her to Emil. Victor pointing out that a hospital's her best choice and it takes a minute for them to remember that everything's back to normal now and they can do that, just take her to a hospital.

Dean doesn't join in, doesn't care what they do, because she's breathing now and that's all that matters.

**May 8, 2012**

_**Excerpt from the Gospel of Chuck**_

_**The Book of Winchester**_

Three days ago the world ended.

You may not believe me. Don't feel bad, not many people will, but it's true.

There were survivors. The smoke cleared and the dust settled and the human race lived on. Only a few of them will even remember the day the world ended, a special few. The ones who need to remember, the ones who want to remember, only a special few will ever know what truly happened. But even those few, those special few, as the years go by and life goes on, will begin to forget.

Like all defining moments in history, like all the stories of the Bible that precede it, what I wrote here will slowly cross the line from the fact to fiction. It will cease to be a part of our history and instead become a part of our mythology.

What happened that day will one day be spoken of in reverent whispers over crackling fires in the dead of night, like a ghost story. It will get passed down from generation to generation, but from one telling to the next, the memory will fade, like a game of telephone that spans the centuries, until all that's left is nothing more than vague notion, a watered down fairy tale.

It will become a parable, a cautionary tale, to illustrate the dangers of sin and temptation and the virtues of courage and faith. It will be studied by Biblical and Historical scholars alike. In a quest for understanding it will be dissected line by line, word by word until it loses all meaning. Then they will attempt to put it back together again in their own image. They will assign it some arbitrary moral, place it in the back of a high shelf and let it lay there forgotten.

But in the beginning there will be a few, a very small few who remember. They alone will be able to see the beauty and the tragedy and the reality. They will remember the sacrifice of those who came before them. They will remember the courage of those who rushed head first into battle. They will remember the unshakable faith that was had. Faith that their fight was just, faith that their lives, their humanity was worth fighting for. That it was worth dying for.

And they will take that faith, they will take that courage and that sacrifice and they will carry those things with them and keep them. These are the pillars on which they will reform their nations, these are the beliefs on which they will raise their children, that will be foundation upon which they will rebuild their brave new world.

Three days ago the world ended.

But after you see, it's what happened after that's important

Because after that, the world began again.

**::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

**May 15, 2012**  
**Stuttgart Air Force Base, Germany**

"I want those force depletion reports by 13:00," General Lane commands, standing from his chair.

"Yes sir." The other soldiers follow him, standing themselves.

"Dismissed." General Lane nods once and they evacuate his office with due haste.

He reaches for the blue folder, next on the stack of un-ending paperwork and it's times like these that the memories come. They're so vivid, so real that he has to stop for a moment as they wash over him. He knows they're real, he remembers them so they have to be real but he has other memories as well, memories that overlap with those memories, memories that make him think, maybe they aren't real.

His intercom buzzes, pulling him out of his head and he's grateful for the distraction. "General Lane sir, we've got two young women at the front gate. They have no ID, no passports. They claim to be American." The soldier pauses. "They claim to be your daughters."

"I'll be right down." General Lane grabs his hat and hurries from the room. He jumps in the waiting jeep just outside his office building and flies through the base to the front gate. He's barely put the jeep in park before his feet are on the ground, carrying him to the guard house.

"My father's not going to be happy about this you know? About the way you're treating us." Lois' voice is unmistakable to his ears and he hurries his pace, only to freeze in the door when he sees them. Lois continues to berate the poor Private until Lucy clamps a hand on her arm.

"Daddy?" Lucy asks quietly, unable to believe her eyes.

Lois is out of the chair like a shot, practically launching herself across the small building and into the General's waiting arms. Lucy follows right behind her and he doesn't care one bit as one after another both of his girl slam into him with all they've got. He closes his eyes as his arms wrap around them, holding on tight to them. In all his time in the military, there had only been once when he believed that he'd never see them again and he realizes now he never wants to relive that feeling.

"How did you get here?" He pulls away, just far enough to stare down at them. "They said you had no ID, no passports?"

"Clark brought us." Lucy sniffled.

"Ah right, guess he doesn't have to fly commercial does he?" The General chuckles and Lucy and Lois laugh.

"So you remember?" Lois asks, looking up at him cautiously.

"I…I'm not sure what I remember." He frowns at her. "I'm not even sure if what I remember was real."

Lois smiles softly at him, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a set of dog tags and holding them up. They're the General's dog tags, which should be impossible because he's wearing his dog tags now. "It was real." Lois nods. "I thought I'd never see you again." He pulls the both of them back in for another hug, this one tighter, more desperate.

"Can we…I mean would it be okay if we…" Lucy bites her lip. "Could we stay here a few days? With you?"

The General smiles and kisses her forehead. "I've got some leave accumulated. I think we could work something out. But you're gonna have to call that boyfriend of yours cause you can't walk around a Military base with no ID and no passports. Plus I have a few things I'd like to say to him. I need to thank him, for looking after my girls." Lois rolls her eyes but her smile never wavers. "Speaking of my girls? Where's Chloe? I want to hear all about it, I want to hear how she did it." He stops at the look on his daughters' faces. "What is it?"

"About Chloe." Lois bites her lip.

**June 8, 2012**  
**Kellyville, Oklahoma**

Jo takes a deep breath and walks into the diner. By the time she makes her way back to the camp Lucas had been gone. When Bobby told her that Jason had been the one to take him, Jo almost didn't believe it for a second. It hadn't been easy to find this place. She'd looked everywhere else she could think of and then remembered one day, the two of them sitting at the edge of the lake and him telling her where he would go if there was no more fight, no more jobs.

The bell on the top of the door rings out, it sounds loud in the somewhat silence of the interior of the diner. "Hi." A plump older woman wearing a name tag that reads Gloria, smiles at Jo kindly and she notices that the place is practically empty. "Can I help you with something?"

"Yes, I'm looking—" the words catch in her throat. What if he isn't here? What if he is and he doesn't remember her. "I'm sorry this was a mistake." She turns around to leave and catches sight of the table in the corner. It's cluttered with books and notebooks, pens and pieces of paper and about three empty pie plates. She spies a very familiar black Nintendo DS sitting at the corner and walks over slowly, picking it up and smiling.

"Oh," Gloria says suddenly and Jo turns to look at her. "You must be Jo."

"I must be?" Jo asks, slightly amused as the swinging door that leads to the kitchen flies open into the room.

"I don't understand why we can't go looking for her." A voice whines and Jo would recognize that whine anywhere. It's Lucas. She feels the world start to tilt as someone follows him out of the back. Jason. He's alive and well and arguing with his little brother just like he should be.

"We don't know that she came back. I can't find Ellen anywhere and we….we don't know that she came back." He doesn't add that even if she did come back there's no guarantee she remembers, because he remembers and Lucas remembers but practically no one else does.

"If you came back, she came back," Lucas says.

"Also because you have school," Jason tells him changing the subject.

"Schools so boring." Lucas groans. "After what happened. After what we did how can you expect me to go to school?"

"Because school's important. Because we did what we did so you could go to school," Jo says suddenly, drawing both of the boys' attention onto her. "You're not gonna be like me, or your brother. You're going to go to school, and you're going to graduate and you're going to go to college because you have that option now."

"Jo!" Lucas screams, a smile lighting up his face as he pulls free of his brother's grasp and slams into her, wrapping his arms around her waist and squeezing tight. "I told him, I told him you came back. I knew you'd come to find us. He was too scared to go find you but I knew you'd come to find us," Lucas babbles.

"I wasn't scared, I was…" the lie catches in Jason's throat. "I was terrified," he admits and Jo laughs.

**June 30, 2012**

**Metropolis, Kansas**

Oliver rubs his hands over his eyes and resists the urge to throw his cell phone into the wall. He can't believe he ever missed them, ever lamented the day that anyone could get in touch with him whenever they wanted to. "No, Ted, no listen to me. I didn't _approve_ the check, I wrote the check."

Oliver looks over at AC and Bart on the sofa. AC is pushing Bart away from him in annoyance which isn't unusual these days because Bart rarely lets AC out of his sight. But even as he's pushing the other man away there is a smile on his face. Since he came back there hasn't been a minute, a second where he doesn't have a smile on his face. "No, I'm not saying that I wrote the check but didn't approve it. I approved it when I wrote it."

Dinah slides a cup of coffee across the counter to him and he smiles gratefully at her. "Are you coming to the hospital today?" She sips her own cup slowly.

"Yeah, I'll drive you guys. Just let me deal with this," he whispers, holding the phone away from him.

"Take your time." Her smile is thinner now, sadder. "She's not going anywhere."

Oliver closes his eyes and swallows. She hadn't meant to sound so…blasé about it. He knows that but still the words hurt. "Look, Ted, it's five thousand dollars, it's not a big deal." Oliver pauses and shakes his head. "No we are definitely not going to talk about the camp right now. I bought it, I own it and I have no plans to get rid of it so just…deal with it." Oliver sighs. "No I don't know when I'm going to be back to Star City." Oliver hits 'end' slightly more violently than he means to but calmly slides the phone into his pocket instead of throwing it off the balcony. When he looks up, everyone's staring at him and he offers them his best smile, which still isn't that great. "Are we ready?"

**July 2, 2012**  
**Washington, D.C.**

Carolyn stares out the window of her Department of Agriculture Office and sighs, her mind a million miles away, or rather two miles away at the White House. She can see the water shooting up into the air from the fountain in Bannaker Circle. She used to love watching the fountain in Bannaker Circle but all she can think about is the view her old office used to have. The rose bushes were just starting to bloom.

"Secretary Meyers?" Tiffany, her assistant says from in front of her desk.

"Can we get some roses in here?" Meyers asks.

"Roses?" Tiffany, asks confused. "You want roses? In the office?"

"That's weird isn't it? Never mind." Meyers shakes her head.

"No, it's not weird." Tiffany types something into her Blackberry. "If you want roses I can get you roses."

"Thank you." Meyers smiles sincerely. "I'm sorry did you need something?"

"This was dropped off at the desk earlier." Tiffany pulls a crisp white envelope out of the top of her planner. "There's no stamp, no return address. The front desk secretary didn't see who dropped it off. It just says 'M.P. Meyers'." Meyers holds out her hand and Tiffany passes her the envelope. "What's the M.P. stand for?"

"Madam President." Meyers smiles wider as she opens the envelope and pulls out a check. "Can you have Eva come in here please?" Tiffany nods, knowing she's been dismissed. "Oh and call Metropolis General and—"

"There's been no change in Mrs. Sullivan's condition. Not since yesterday." Tiffany smiles at her. "May I ask ma'am. Who she is?"

Meyers wants to say that she's the most important person that ever lived but how do you explain that. "No," she says instead. "You may not."

"Yes ma'am." Tiffany ducks her head embarrassed and walks out of the office. Eva comes in a minute later and Meyers doesn't say anything just holds out the check.

"What's this?" Eva asks confused then she reads it. She sees the Queen Industries logo at the top right corner first. "Five thousand dollars from Queen Industries?" Eva says. "But—why?" Meyers points to the bottom left of the check. "Meyers for President, 2016." Eva smiles. "Oliver wrote this, I recognize his writing. Is he being serious?"

"This was on there." Meyers passes over a small Post-It that simply says, _'I'd vote for you'._

"What do you want to do with it?" Eva asks.

"Deposit it," Meyers says decisively. "Then report it to the Campaign Finance Committee."

Eva smiles, reporting donations is tantamount to announcing your candidacy. "Okay, I can do that." As Eva walks out, Tiffany walks in. She sets a large bouquet of roses on the side cabinet next to the windows and walks back out. It's nowhere near the rose garden outside of the Oval Office, but it'll do, for now.

**July 23, 2012**  
**Smallville, Kansas**

Clark leans over and grabs another bale of hay and tosses it above his head, into the haystack without even looking. He likes this, the physical activity, getting back to his roots, working the farm. He took a leave of absence from the Planet after…well, after the world ended. He just felt more at home here, more alive. Chloe had said, _you can take the boy off the farm but you can't take the farm out of the boy (of the boy but you can't take the boy off the farm)_. Chloe had been right. Clark hears footsteps crunch through the strands of hay on the ground and grabs another bale, tossing it up into the hay stack.

"You should be more careful," Lois calls to him from the barn door. "I could have been anyone."

"I knew it was you," Clark tells her with a smile. "I smelled you."

Lois frowns and sniffs her shirt, pauses then sniffs her underarms. "I don't smell."

"You smell." Clark chuckles. "Everyone has a distinct smell."

"That's kind of gross." Lois wrinkles her nose and steps into the barn.

"It's not really." Clark leans up against the post. "You smell sort of like, cinnamon and brown sugar."

"Oh." Lois smiles. "That's not so gross, it's kind of sweet." She kisses his cheek. "I'm going to drive up to the hospital today, you want to come?"

"Yeah." Clark nods. "Let me finish up in here and then shower because right now I do not smell like apples and vanilla."

"OK." Lois smiles. "I like the way you smell." She wraps her arms around his waist and he laughs.

"Now that's kind of gross," Clark tells her.

"Clark," Lois whispers but her tone is strange. He feels her body tense in his arms and he turns around slowly, moving Lois behind him when he sees who's at the other end of the barn.

"Zod." Clark grits his teeth and the only thing stopping him from running forward and snapping Zod's neck is the fact that it will leave Lois unprotected from the twenty or so other Kandorians standing behind him.

"I am not here to hurt you." Zod steps forward quickly with his hands up. "We couldn't if we wanted to." Clark narrows his eyes and studies Zod more closely.

"You don't have your powers," Clark says relaxing a bit but not completely. Lois moves from behind him to stand beside him, and he grabs her hand, holding tight.

"No, when we…woke up we found ourselves completely powerless," Zod admits.

"Is that what you're doing here? Begging for your powers back? Because I think we both know the answer to that question," Clark tells him angrily.

"We do not want our powers back." Alia steps forward.

"You don't?" Clark asks skeptically.

"No," Zod tells him. "We have come to understand that we do not deserve to have that kind of power." Clark and Lois share a skeptical look before turning back to the Kandorians. "We were given a second chance, a second chance that we did not deserve. We wish to take that second chance and build a life, here. If that is OK with you."

"I don't think—" Clark moves to step forward but Lois holds tight to his hand, halting him.

"Yes, that's fine," Lois says and Clark turns to her confused. "They were brought back. They didn't have to be brought back but God or someone brought them back. God or someone thought they deserved a second chance. Chloe would have given them a second chance."

Clark smiles softly at her then turns to Zod and nods once. Zod snaps to attention and lowers himself to his knees, kneeling before Clark, the other Kandorians follow suit him. "Get up," Clark says softly and they obey.

"She sacrificed herself for you." Alia steps forward.

"Yes, she did," Lois answers.

"And if we had not turned on her, she would have sacrificed herself for us," Alia says but her statement comes out as more of a question.

"No." Lois shakes her head. "You turned on her, but she still scarified herself for you."

**August 8, 2012**  
**London, England**

Jeremy grabs his phone and keys and looks down at the screen. There's a text from Ethan asking him where his is. He's late for study group. He doesn't bother texting him back, he'll see Ethan in a few minutes. He grabs a stack of mail from the edge of the table and locks his door on the way out. He jogs down one flight of stairs and walks over to 5a and knocks on the door. It opens a minute later and Jeremy smiles. "Robbie, mate." He holds out the stack of mail.

"Postman not paying attention?" Robbie grabs the mail.

"He's in love again." Jeremy leans against the door frame. "Every time he meets a girl he loses the ability to read numbers and letters."

"Hang on, I might have some of yours." Robbie walks away leaving the door open.

"Alright Jeremy?" Amelia asks as she passes through the den.

"Can't complain." Jeremy shrugs.

"Oh, I finally caught up with 9c, her name's Beth and she's lived here almost three years. I'm having her round Sunday for roast. You're coming." Amelia orders him.

"Is this a set up?" Jeremy asks cautiously.

"God no, she's not your type." Amelia laughs but Jeremy isn't insulted.

"Then yes, mum." Jeremy offers her a mock salute. He'd never given much thought to his neighbors in the five or so years he'd lived here but one day he runs into Amelia in the laundry room, a few days later Robbie knocks on his door to introduce himself as Jeremy's downstairs neighbor and to let him know that something is leaking from Jeremy's apartment into Robbie's.

A pipe had burst and Robbie caught it before it could do too much damage. In thanks, Jeremy invited Robbie and Amelia over for dinner and they'd been pretty good friends ever since.

"Nothing for you but Mr. Rosen in 1g gets like five different copies of Victoria Secret." Robbie smiles.

"Then he won't miss one will he?" Jeremy grabs one. "I'm late for study group. See you Sunday." He ducks back into the stairwell and down to the ground floor. He sees an elderly woman at the front door trying to maneuver the grocery bag in her hands so that she can open the door. Jeremy jumps forward and opens it for her. "Here you go, Ms. Harden."

"Always the gentlemen." Ms. Harden smiles at Jeremy. "And always in a hurry," she comments as she slips out the door. "You slow down one day, I'll make you my famous chocolate biscuits."

"It's a deal," Jeremy calls over his shoulder, forcing himself to slow down. Ms. Harden makes the best chocolate biscuits.

**August 29, 2012**  
**Alexandria, Virginia**

Lieutenant Colonel James Archer leans back in his seat and smiles at his computer screen.

"The resolution on these things are amazing." Captain Roger Harris squints at him through the web cam. "How'd you get your hands on proprietary Queen Industries tech? The DOD doesn't even have these yet."

"A friend of a friend," Archer says. "He owed me a favor."

"And you used wasted that favor on this?" Harris raises his eyebrow.

"No. I just mentioned that I thought it would be nice if some friends of mine oversees could talk to their families, see their wives and kids with slightly better technology than a string and a can. He sent you guys these. I can take them back if you don't like them."

"No, we appreciate it. And the body armor that came with it. We really appreciate it," Harris tells him sincerely then shakes his head, changing the subject. "I swear to God it looks like you're sitting right next to me."

"I wish," Archer jokes, staring behind Harris at the sun setting over the dessert of Afghanistan.

"Not as much as I wish," Harris says seriously. "We miss you here."

Archer coughs and changes the subject. "How's the sand pit treating you?"

"Same old." Harris shrugs. "How's desk duty treating you?"

"Good actually." Archer shrugs back. "I think I might like it here."

"Really? Playing bodyguard to the Secretary of Agriculture?" Harris snorts. "Seriously, who'd you piss off to get that assignment?"

"I requested it actually." Archer tells him cryptically.

"You miss the fight though right?"

"No." Archer shakes his head seriously. "No, I've had my fair share of fights, I'm done." He pauses, thinking of his last fight and how nothing he could ever do would compare to it, nothing could ever come close to meaning as much. "But that doesn't mean I don't like a good story." Archer reaches beside the computer and grabs his beer taking a sip.

"Now that's not fair," Harris says. "You're gonna sit there and drink that in front of me? I've been in theater for a year now. Haven't had a beer in eight months, that's just cruel."

"I'll drink this one for you," Archer says. "And you give me a good story."

Harris shakes his head with a smile, not getting how that's a fair trade at all but finding himself accepting anyway. "I'll take that deal."

**September 18, 2012**  
**Cincinnati, Ohio**

Father Mackenzie prays. He prays every day. He prays for everyone. Every day he prays for everyone and he never wavers. Father Mackenzie is a lucky man. In his life he has seen prayers answered. He has seen the glory and the miracles of the Lord first hand. He has had his faith tested and come out on the other side stronger for it. He has been blessed. So everyday he prays for those who have not had the experiences that he's had. Every day he prays for those people who struggle with their faith, who haven't seen the glory and the miracles first hand.

But every day he also prays for one person, just one. This prayer is a special prayer, this prayer is a prayer that he has only ever prayed for her, that he can only ever pray for her because she is the only one that would ever need this prayer. This prayer is also one prayer that he's not sure will ever be answered but every day he prays it anyway because he owes her this prayer, he owes her so much more than this prayer but he is a priest and praying is what he does best.

He lifts his head when his prayer is finished and smiles out at the crowded chapel. He'd like to say that, even though 99% of the population is completely unaware that anything happened, there's still been an increase in attendance. That deep down the people could feel something had changed and that that feeling had brought them back to the church. But that didn't happen. The attendance in Father Mackenzie's church is the same as it was before, the same as it's always been, but that's okay. "Let us give thanks," Father Mackenzie tells the congregation and they all bow their heads.

**October 10, 2012**  
**Buena Vista, Virginia**

Jenny smiles at the man in the suit as she hands him his latte. He smiles back and drops a dollar in the tip jar. He was the last in line, everyone's been served so she leans against the counter for a minute to rest her legs. Her mother's got a doctor's appointment tomorrow and she expects the doctor to say what he's been saying for the past year now.

"The tests look good, everything looks clean. Bring her back in six months and hopefully it'll be more of the same."

Jenny has no reason to believe that the cancer's come back. Her mom hasn't been sick or tired or any of the other signs but she crosses herself and offers up a little prayer anyway. It's strange to her, even as she does it, it's strange. She's never been overly religious. The last time she was in a church was when she was a little girl, yet the moves felt practiced and familiar.

"Your wrist okay?" Brandy, her co-worker asks from where she's cleaning out the blenders.

"Yeah why?" Jenny frowns.

"You've been rubbing it for the past few minutes." Brandy shrugs. Jenny looks down and sure enough her right hand is rubbing at her left wrist. She hadn't even realized she'd been doing it. "Customer." Brandy nods to the counter and Jenny turns around with a smile.

"Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get for you?" Jenny asks.

**November 28, 2012**  
**Sioux Falls, South Dakota**

Bobby makes his way to the back corner of the storage shed and searches the boxes that fill the shelves in front of him. He finds the one he's looking for and pulls it down, carrying it over to a work bench. "You said a compressor for a '69 Camero?" Bobby calls over his shoulder.

"That's right." The man nods back.

Bobby digs through the box of car parts until he finds the one he's looking for. "Ah." He pulls it out and studies it. It looks good to him so he grabs the box to put it back up when something in the corner catches his eye. He pauses and stares at the old wheelchair in the back corner of the shed. It's slightly rusted and a spider has used the edges of the handle as anchors to build itself a substantial web. He suddenly feels a wave of guilt wash over him and wonders when the last time was he made the trip up to Metropolis. He wonders even when the last time he called Dean was.

Bobby doesn't like calling Dean, doesn't like going to visit for a few days because he knows it's not enough, he knows it will never be enough. She healed him and he can't even stand to sit at her bedside for a few hours because he knows there's nothing he can do for her.

"Did you find it?" The man asks, drawing Bobby from his thoughts.

"Yeah, sorry." Bobby turns around. "Got it right here." He leads the man out of the shop and vows to call Dean soon, because even though it will never be enough, at least it something.

**December 3, 2012**

**Metropolis, Kansas**

"I know Bobby, we've all been busy." Dean steps out of the elevator, his phone pressed up against his ear. "I'm glad you called too. Yeah, maybe you could come up for Christmas? Sammy's planning on coming in and staying with me, spend the holidays as a family he says." Dean chuckles. "No, I'm staying in Smallville now. Chloe's old apartment, the one above the coffee shop. The Watchtower just felt too…and Oliver needed the space for his team. He's done so much already, I didn't want to get in his way." Dean stops at the nurses' station desk. "Yeah I'll call you closer to the holidays." Dean hangs up the phone and turns to Julia, the nurse on duty and holds out one of the three cups of coffee in the carrier he's holding.

"You're too good to me." Julia takes the coffee and sniffs it in appreciation. "He's almost finished. He never stays more than an hour and he got here around two so..." She points out pouring her customary two packets of sugar in the cup.

"Thanks." Dean leans against the counter and takes his own cup, sipping it slowly.

"Oh, Dean hi." Rachel, another nurse walks up to the counter and slides her charts in the tray. "Is it three o'clock already?" She asks, looking from Dean to the third cup of coffee then back to Dean.

"Rachel." Dean offers her a small smile but nothing more.

"A couple of us are going to the Ace of Clubs after work tonight. You should join us." Rachel leans against the counter and looks up at him through her lashes, a slight blush to her cheeks which Dean would bet his life was practiced.

"I'm going to pass, but thanks for the offer," Dean tells her and Rachel just smiles before walking away.

Julia gives him a disapproving look from behind her computer monitor. "When are you just going to let that girl down easy?"

Dean snorts and sips his coffee. "I think the fact that I've come here every day for the past seven months to sit by the bedside of my comatose girlfriend should have let her down easy a long time ago." Julia doesn't say anything because he does have a point, Rachel just doesn't have any shame. "Besides, you know if I were ever going to leave Chloe, it would be for you," he says and Julia just rolls her and sips her coffee.

"If I thought for one second you meant that, I'd go home right now, pack a bag and kiss my husband and kids goodbye." Julia leans back in her chair.

"Oh I mean it darlin'." Dean winks at her but she doesn't blush. Rachel blushes on command, but Julia has been a nurse for almost thirty years and she's got four kids, nothing makes her blush anymore. Dean is determined to make her blush.

"You know you can go in there," Julia says softly to him. "We allow more than one visitor at a time."

"I'd just…I'd rather not," Dean says taking a very large mouthful of hot coffee and it burns but he just swallows.

"Is he her ex?" Julia asks suddenly and Dean swings his head around to look at her. "I mean you let him visit her but you don't seem very happy about it. You won't be in the same room as the guy and when you see him you get this little twitchy vein in your forehead." Dean stares at her. "We thought it might be because he's her ex."

"He's…" Dean isn't exactly sure how to answer the question. In one way he's nothing to Chloe in another he was everything . He's saved from having to try and explain it when Lois slides to a stop beside him, slightly out of breath. He gratefully passes her the third cup of coffee.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She takes a sip of the coffee and catches her breath. "I'm sorry I'm late, I forgot it was the first Monday of the month and I know you hate the first Monday of the month."

"It's fine Lois, you didn't have to come," Dean says, even as his whole body sags in relief at her presence, somehow it's just easier facing him when Lois is there.

He tenses up as the door to Chloe's room opens and a familiar blonde head makes its way out. Lois' hand slides into his and he hadn't even realized he'd reached out for it.

"Dean." The man freezes when he gets to the nurses' station.

It's painful for Dean to even say his name but he forces himself to return the greeting, not wanting to add fuel to Julia's fire. "Nick," he says and Lois squeezes his hand.

He averts his eyes, unable to look at Dean, mostly out of shame, a little out of fear. He's probably afraid that Dean will hit him again and he's right to be afraid because Dean really wants nothing more than to hit him, every time he sees that face and Lois is the only thing that stops him. It doesn't matter to Dean that he's Nick now, that he's been Nick since he got back because when Dean looks at him, all he can see is Lucifer.

He doesn't linger, he never lingers. He knows that Dean doesn't have to let him visit, he's not even fully sure why Dean lets him visit but he's too afraid to question it, too afraid that if he does question it, Dean will stop let him coming and he has to come because she forgave him. There's a part of him that just knows at the end, when she uttered those words, they were for him, not for Lucifer, for him.

Ever since he got back he's done whatever he could to make sure that he was worthy of that forgiveness but it's hard because he remembers everything that he's done, everything. He sees it when he closes his eyes and he hears the screams but when he's in there with her he can close his eyes and be free because she chases away the nightmares and he can hear himself think because she banishes the voices. Even though it's only for an hour, only one hour, once a month he'll take what he can get because he knows that he doesn't even deserve that much.

Lois squeezes Dean's hand one more time as Nick gets in the elevator and lets it go once the doors are closed. "You okay?" she asks him.

"Fine." Dean tries to shake it off, he always tries to shake it off but it stays with him. It lingers and just when he thinks he might have a chance to forget about it, it's the first Monday of the month again and then Nick's there again and it all comes back and he can't shake it. "I just don't understand. Why does he get to come back and she's still stuck in that bed? Why does he get a second chance?" Dean turns to Lois. "Doesn't she deserve a second chance? I mean if anybody on this stupid planet deserves a second chance wouldn't it be her?" Dean's pleading now. "Why did _he_ get a second chance?"

"Why did any of us get a second chance?" Lois asks him in return.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_Chloe watches as the last rays of the sun edge toward the horizon line. The waves crash against the shore, getting closer and closer to her feet but she doesn't move back. The sand beneath her toes has already turned cool, missing the warmth that the sun provides but Chloe likes it best this time of day. She digs her bare feet in further, wiggling her toes. The beach is empty, she's the only one out here but that's okay, she's always been the only one out here. _

_"It's starting to get chilly," Dean says, coming up behind her and draping a blanket over her shoulders._

_"Yeah." Chloe smiles, tilting her head back to receive a kiss. She shivers then, she hadn't felt the cold before he pointed it out, and pulls the blanket tighter around her. She stares out at the strikingly bright blue sky tinged with oranges and pinks and even some greens and it reminds her of the way the light refracted through the crystal. Her hand reaches for the chain around her neck before she remembers that it's not there anymore, that the crystal's not there anymore. That makes her think about why the crystal's not there anymore and she shivers again. _

_"You want to go in?" Dean asks, putting an arm around her shoulder and rubbing his hands up down her arm in an attempt to further warm her. _

_"No, this is the best part." Chloe shakes her head and forces a smile as the last bits of light disappear from view. _

_"You've been quiet tonight." Dean steals a glance at her. "You've been quiet for a few days now actually." _

_"I've been thinking." Chloe turns to look at him, pulling her legs up to her chest, and lays her head on her knees. _

_"What have I told you about that?" Dean smiles and brushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his hand lingering on her neck, his thumb rubbing softly on her cheek. _

_"I know." Chloe smiles back weakly and grabs his wrist, covering his hand with her own and sliding her fingers between his. He meant for it to come out as a joke but Chloe knew that he was right. She tries, everyday she tries not to think too much because thinking leads to remembering and remembering leads to awareness and she doesn't want to be aware, not in this place. _

_She knows she isn't on a beach somewhere, but she knows this is something because before there had been nothing. She had been alive, and then, for a while, there had been nothing and then suddenly there was this. But she also doesn't think this is a dream, it doesn't feel like a dream, not like the dreams she'd had before. It feels like more and it feels like less. Some days she thinks this is some sort of purgatory, her own special purgatory. Some days she think this is heaven, she likes those days the best because if this is heaven then the man in front of her is really Dean and they're together again. _

_But even on her best days she knows whatever this is, it's temporary. She can feel it, deep down in her-well not her bones, she doesn't technically have bones anymore-but deep down she can feel it. She knows that any second this could all be gone, the beach, the sunset, Dean, all of it and that scares her more than anything. "I'm not going anywhere," Dean says frowning. He can always tell what she's thinking here. _

_"I know you aren't." Chloe kisses him softly. Dean's not going anywhere but she is and she has no way of knowing if it will be better than this or if will be worse than this but she knows it won't be this. _

_"There's something you're not telling me." Dean leans his forehead against hers. "There's always something you're not telling me." _

_"I love you," she says. _

_"You tell me that all the time." He smiles. She does tell him that all the time because she'd waited too long to tell him when they were alive and she didn't get to tell him nearly as much as she wanted so here she tells him all the time. _

_"Sometimes I hear voices." Chloe lifts her head up. _

_"In your head?" Dean raises his eyebrows. _

_"Not like that." Chloe rolls her eyes. "They sound muffled, like they're coming from far away. They sound familiar." _

_"Ah." Dean stands up. "Then it's getting to be that time." He holds out his hands and pulls Chloe to her feet. _

_"I'm leaving?" she asks him._

_Dean nods, leading her back up the beach to the house. "It'll be okay. Trust me, I don't want you to be scared, this is nothing to be scared about." For some reason it doesn't seem strange that Dean knows what's going on. It should seem strange but it doesn't because she loves him and she trusts him. So she isn't scared. _

_"Will I get to see another sunset?" Chloe looks back at the ocean with longing. _

_::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::_

**February 16, 2013**

Chloe doesn't get to see another sunset. She doesn't get to see much of anything. One minute she's walking up the beach, Dean's arm around her shoulder and the next she hurts, all over. The light behind her eyelids is harsh and too bright but when she tries to ask someone to turn it off or dim it down she can't. There's something in her throat and when she tries to talk it just hurts her even more. She can hear things beeping and whirring but she can't hold a thought in her head for more than a second because the pain is so intense.

She blinks. Slowly at first then faster. Her eyes water with the effort and everything is blurry for a minute. The voices, the same ones she heard back on the beach, are louder and more frantic. She can hear people hurrying around, barking out orders. She can't make out anything yet. She can feel a hand though. A hand that's steady in hers, and hand that's gripping hers tightly. A hand that's being pulled from hers, forcibly. She tries to hold on tight but her muscles are so weak that she can't manage anything more than a light squeeze.

And then the hand is gone and her hand feels strange and empty but she doesn't have time to think about that because she's being leaned back further and then someone's yanking the tube from her throat and that pain is so much worse. Then she's gasping for breath and choking at the same time and someone rolls her onto her side and her eyes begin to water.

Sometime later, it could have been minutes, it could have been hours, when her eyes have finally adjusted to the light, Dr. Emil explains to her what happened. Well he explains to her what happened in the best way that he can because he doesn't really understand what happened. He tells her all he knows.

That they found her lying in the field dead. That three days later she took a breath. That she's been in a coma ever since. That every scan, every test he's run indicated to him that she wasn't getting better, that she might never get better and then…she just woke up. She tries to ask if it's her power but it's harder to form words and sounds than she thought. Emil understands though and just shakes his head.

"I was monitoring that too. It appears that while your powers seem to be much stronger than they were a few years ago they haven't been active." Emil smiles fondly at her. "You need some rest."

In lieu of trying to talk to him, Chloe offers him what she thinks is an incredulous look. He laughs and shakes his head. "I know it sounds strange, you've been asleep for a while, but you're body is still very weak. Just try and get some rest. For me." Chloe nods. "I'll be back in a few hours to do another check up."

The last thing Chloe wants to do is sleep but she finds her eyes drifting closed at the mere mention of it. She fights it, as hard as she can, she'd fight harder if she was stronger but she's not stronger and she's loosing. She feels that familiar hand slip into hers and squeeze once. She knows who it is without looking, even though it makes no sense, even though she knows he's dead. Then again, she's in a hospital and that to her is impossible too. She's too scared to say his name, like saying it will make him disappear, so she stops fighting and sleeps.

When she wakes up again, it's easier. Her eyes adjust faster and she can still feel the familiar hand in hers. She follows the hand to the body that's attached to it and smiles. "Dean," she whispers. It's gruff and low but it feels good in a strange way. His grip isn't as tight as it had been before, possibly because he's asleep now. She stares at him for a while, just stares at him, watches the rise and fall of his chest. Something else catches her eyes, his other hand is lying on the bed next to her, and something achingly familiar is clenched in his fist.

Chloe pulls her hand from Dean's slack grasp and reaches out. Her movements are still slow, her muscles protesting with every inch until they land on Dean's clenched fist. She opens his fingers one by one and stares down at the crucifix he's clutching like a lifeline. Her fingers ghost over the beads, the words automatically forming in her mind-_Hail Mary full of grace-_ and then she feels his eyes on hers. "Where did you get these?" she asks. The words tear from her throat, ripping across her tongue, each vibration a new sensation, a new pain.

"A guy gave them to me," Dean says whispering. His eyes never leave hers. Her eyes never leave the rosary.

"What guy?" Chloe asks, gripping the beads and pulling them from his hand.

"You've been asleep for almost a year," Dean says. "Can it possibly wait?"

"No." She shakes her head.

Dean sits up and sighs, rubbing his hands on his face for a second. "It was just some guy."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_**January 8, 2013**_

_"Hello." Dean walks into the hospital room and stares at the man who is currently sitting vigil by Chloe's bedside, sitting in his chair. "Can I help you?" It isn't strange to find random people in her room, those that woke up remembering, a lot of them come to visit. It's almost like a pilgrimage for them. They come to pay their respects and mostly that's okay with him. But at least he's known them, each and every one of them. This guy he doesn't know.  
_  
_The man jumps up in surprise and tries to smile at Dean. "Do you know her?" he asks._

_"Do you?" Dean takes another step into the room. _

_"We met once," the man says. "Very briefly. I'm Stephen." He relays to Dean a story of Chloe helping him out while his wife was in the hospital with cancer._

_"We were back here today for a checkup and I saw her name on the board." Stephen shakes his head. "I mean it was a long shot that it was the same Chloe Sullivan but I had to check." _

_"OK." Dean sits down, reclaiming his chair. _

_"She saved me," Stephen explains to Dean. "She didn't do anything spectacular, she just sat with me on a stoop and got baby spit up on her jacket and she…" he trails off. "How did she…what happened to her?" _

_"She saved me," Dean says sipping his awful hospital coffee. He wants to add, "and she saved you, and everyone else on this stupid, bloody, meaningless planet," but he doesn't._

_"How long has she been like this?" _

_It feels strange, talking to an outsider about Chloe, to someone who can't know or even begin to understand what she did, what they've been through. Dean wants to tell him to go away, to go to hell, to stop talking but he doesn't, instead he just answers._

_"Eight months, three days, six hours." _

_Stephen reaches into his pocket and pulls something out, pressing it into Dean's hands without preamble. "Here." _

_Dean looks down at the beads, stares at the cross. "Trust me, I'm the last person on earth right now you want praying," he says trying to give it back. _

_"Just keep it," Stephen says and Dean finds himself nodding and clutching the beads in his fist, though he doesn't know why. _

_"OK." He nods. _

_"Stephen?" A woman appears at the door with a four-year-old boy holding onto her hand and a bright smile on her face. "Are you ready?"_

_"Yeah." He nods, scooping up the boy in his arms and spinning him around. _

_"Remission?" Dean asks noticing the very real, very healthy head of hair on Stephen's wife._

_"Two years and counting," the woman says. _

_"I hope…" Stephen starts but doesn't finish. He doesn't say it's going to be okay. He doesn't tell Dean that everything will be alright. He just nods. Dean nods back and then he leaves and Dean's still clutching the rosary. _

**::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::**

"I don't understand," Chloe whispers.

"Which part?" Dean frowns confused. They'd been worried about this, about brain damage and Emil had tried his hardest to prepare him.

"Any of it, all of it." Chloe shakes her head. "What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Where…I don't…I remember _dying_," Chloe says to him.

"Oh." Dean frowns because he hadn't expected this, the big question to come up so soon. He was hoping he'd have a few days to ease her into it, back into normal life. "It's complicated."

"What happened Dean?" Chloe asks him.

"Well, we were sort of hoping you would know," Dean tells her honestly. Dean explains to her everything that Emil left out, about how after they all woke up everything had gone back to normal, about how the entire world had shifted in an instant and it was like nothing had every happened.

"How come we remember?" Chloe asks him.

"I don't know." Dean shrugs. "Not everyone does. Julia, the desk nurse, she doesn't. Most people don't actually, but we do." Dean thinks. "Everyone who was there that day, well mostly everyone." He frowns. "Everyone who woke up there, the demon possessed weren't there, they were gone, I don't know if they remember. The angel's vessels, they remember though." Dean takes a deep breath and shakes his head. "A lot of people don't remember." He repeats desperately.

"But we do?" Chloe says. "Why?"

"Chuck tried to explain it to me," Dean says frustrated. "He says it has to do with choices. He says the people who had a choice remember and the ones who didn't don't. But I don't know what that means; no one gave me a choice to remember."

Chloe cuts him off. "It wasn't a choice to remember," she says getting it immediately. "It was a choice to fight. You choose to fight so you remember. The angel's vessels, they chose to let the angels in, they made that choice so they remember but the ones possessed, they didn't have a choice, all the infected, they didn't have a choice."

"So they get to forget." Dean follows her thinking.

"No, they don't _get_ to forget." Chloe shakes her head. "We _get_ to remember."

_What if this storm ends, and leaves us nothing_

_Except a memory, a distant echo_

_I want to see you as you are now_

_Every single day, I am living_

_Painted in flames, all pealing thunder_

_Be the lightening in me, that strikes relentless_

_-Snow Patrol_

_(Part One of the song "The Lightening Strike")_

*I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.


	21. Wicked Game

**Wicked Game**

_The world was on fire, and no one could save me but you._

_It's strange what desire will make foolish people do._

_I never dreamed that I'd love somebody like you _

_And I never dreamed that I lose somebody like you_

_-Chris Isaak_

**June 9, 2013**

Chloe studies Dean's face while he sleeps and feels a soft smile tug at the corner of her lips. He's got a bit of drool trailing from the corner of his mouth to the pillow and she resists the urge to reach out and wipe it off. She lifts up onto her elbow and looks over him to check the alarm clock. It's 5:54 a.m., he's only got a few more minutes before the alarm goes off but she lets him sleep.

She rests her head back down on her pillow and just stares at him. Once upon a time she never thought she'd see him again but here he is, in her apartment, in her bed and sometimes she has to pinch herself because she's afraid this all might end up being one big dream. She wiggles further under the covers and a hand shoots out to her hip. "Stop squirming." Dean mumbles, sleep heavy in his voice.

"Sorry did I wake you?" Chloe whispers and he cracks one eye open.

"No the constant squirming woke me." Dean frowns when he notices that she looks rather wide eyed. "How long have you been awake?"

"About thirty minutes." Chloe answers sheepishly.

Dean puts two and two together, the squirming and the waking up early and curses, sitting up. "You have to go to the bathroom?" He asks her but doesn't wait for an answer before getting out of the bed and walking over to her side.

"A little." Chloe admits as he grabs the crutches that are leaning up against the wall on the opposite side of Chloe's nightstand and passes them over to her.

"You could have woken me up." Dean reminds her for what feels like the hundredth time. She braces herself, one hand on either crutch and pushes as hard as she can, slowly lifting her body to a standing position. Dean stops himself before he can offer to help. He knows that she'd take him up on it but whenever she manages something on her own these days she gets this soft secret little smile and Dean can admit that he likes seeing that because lately it's one of the most genuine smiles that he gets to see from her. When she finally makes it upright he gets a small glimpse of it before she looks up at him.

"I didn't want to bother you." Chloe tells him. "You needed your sleep and I'm a big girl, I can hold it."

His reply is cut off when the alarm clock goes off and he hurries over to stop the incessant beeping. He turns around to assure Chloe that waking him up to help her to the bathroom is not bothering him but she's already gone, and the bathroom door is closed. "I'll go start some coffee." He says into the empty room and the only reply he gets is the sound of the shower running.

Their morning continues on like regular. Dean makes the coffee and Chloe tries and fails to get out of the shower and dry herself off on her own. "I told you I don't mind." Dean scolds her as he dries off her legs while she balances herself by holding onto his shoulders.

"Maybe I mind." Chloe comes back with and Dean looks up to see the frustration in her eyes.

"Well I'd mind it a lot more if you slipped and fell and hit your head." Dean points out standing up and handing her the towel so she can wrap herself up then passes over the crutches. "You're coffees on your vanity." He says and places a soft peck on her lips before stripping down himself and jumping in the shower.

They get dressed and ready in relative silence. "Where's my work shirt?" Dean asks lifting up the edge of the mattress and Chloe turns around and smirks at him.

"Why would it be under there?" She asks amused.

"Because it's not anywhere else." Dean says exasperated.

"Have you tried the closet?" Chloe tries and fails to hide her smile and Dean glares at her, insinuating that of course he tried the closet but he goes and checks anyway, emerging a minute later, slightly annoyed, buttoning up the grey shirt, a patch for Aamco Garage on one side of his chest and a patch with his name on the other.

"You ready?" He asks and she nods, grabbing the crutches and pushing herself to her feet.

"We've got some time." Chloe comments as they walk to the door. "I can make you a quick breakfast." Dean hides his grimace by turning and making sure the door is locked, he still remembers her last attempt at breakfast, the taste of the eggs stayed with him for a week.

"No thanks I can just pick up something on the way to work." He assures her.

The drive into Metropolis is quiet, a morning talk radio show playing softly in the background. Dean pulls up outside the hospital and puts the car in park, grabs Chloe's crutches from the trunk and helps her out. "I'll pick you up after your session and we can grab lunch." Dean offers.

"It's weights today." Chloe says shaking her head. "I'm going to be exhausted. I can just get Lois to pick me up, head back home, rest a bit."

"Sounds like a plan." Dean smiles and kisses her cheek before walking back over to his side of the car.

"I was thinking I'd try a pot roast for dinner tonight." Chloe calls after him and he pauses, making a mental note to grab something quick to eat on the way home then pastes a fake smile on his face and looks up.

"Pot roast sounds perfect." Dean assures her before getting in the car and waiting for a chance to pull back into traffic.

Chloe makes her way slowly to the hospital doors and turns around at the sound of the Impala's horn. Dean waves as he drives off and Chloe waves back, one hand on the door knob of the hospital until Dean disappears around the corner a few blocks away. She drops her hand and turns, heading back for the street before sticking her arm out and calling a cab. One stops for her right away, one of the only perks of the crutches and she slides into the back seat. "6th and Waverly." Chloe says and the cab driver nods once as she settles herself in her seat.

The cab ride is short, normally she would have walked it but with the crutches it would probably have taken her half the morning so she doesn't sweat the extra expense. She climbs out onto the street in front of the Watchtower and gives the man a generous tip before heading into the building. When she gets off the elevator and heads through the main doors she doesn't bother turning on the lights. Most everything in the apartment is covered in dust clothes except for Chloe's desk. "Oracle, wake up." Chloe calls out from across the room and the monitors in the back corner of the space spring to life as she makes her way over.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean passes up the Mechanic's shop that matches the name on his shirt without a second thought and makes his way further across town, pulling into a familiar parking garage and settling the Impala in its usual spot.

Oliver doesn't even look when the elevator call button blinks, simply presses the lock release and picks up his coffee cup. "Morning." Dean says, pulling off his jacket as he walks into the Clock Tower.

"Morning." Oliver nods at him and flips the page of his paper.

Dean steps over to the bookshelf and pulls the third book on the fourth shelf toward him, opening up the clock and revealing Oliver's secret room. Whereas before the room was only used to house Oliver's Green Arrow equipment and then later some of the teams stuff it now also has a corner completely dedicated to Dean. There's a small desk upon which are numerous leather back books. The wall surrounding the desk is covered with maps and newspaper articles.

Dean pulls off his jacket and sits at the desk without another word and Oliver stares at him for a second then sets his coffee cup in the sink and grabs his jacket. "Lock up when you're done." He says simply before heading to the elevator.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Oliver steps into the Watchtower the only real source of light in the room coming from Chloe's monitors and he shakes his head, flipping the switches on the wall by the door and turning all the over head lights on. Chloe doesn't even lift her head. "Hey." He says heading for her desk. "It's one o'clock." He tells her and still she doesn't look up at him. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you haven't stopped for lunch."

Chloe looks up at this but only offers him a small smile. "Figured." Oliver rolls his eyes over dramatically and drops a brown bag on the corner of her desk. "Corned beef on rye, light on the sauerkraut, from that Deli you like downtown."

"You're a Prince you know that?" Chloe offers him a real smile this time and grabs for the bag, pulling out the sandwich.

"Actually I'm a Queen." He says making his way to the kitchen then stops and turns around. Chloe's got a mouth full of corned beef and she's trying not to laugh. "Scratch that last remark." He says hopefully and she offers him a small nod, swallowing her food.

He pulls a bottle of water from the fridge and brings it back to the Chloe, setting it on her desk next to the sandwich. "You need the jet today?"

"No, thank you, it's only a two hour drive." Chloe wipes the corner of her mouth. "Just the car please."

"The driver's waiting down stairs." Oliver looks over the mess of papers on her desk and then at the board on the wall behind her and once again tries to make sense of the information. "Are you ever going to tell me what you're doing here?" He asks.

"Maybe." Chloe says through a mouthful of sandwich.

"Are you ever going to tell Dean?" Oliver asks cautiously and turns back around.

"Thank you for lunch." Chloe says, ignoring the question and Oliver takes that as his cue to leave.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean settles the phone between his ear and shoulder as he digs through the papers on his desk. "I don't know why salting and burning his bones didn't work. I'm pretty sure we're dealing with a run of the mill ghost here Sammy. I found the article from about twenty years ago, guy lost his job, went psycho in the lobby with a machine gun then blew his brains out in his bosses office on the fourth floor." He checks his watch and curses. "Look, I gotta go, I'm gonna be late for dinner but Topeka's only an hour and half from here, I can sneak out after Chloe goes to bed and meet you there. Maybe the guy left some of himself in the office carpet or something. We'll figure it out and I can be back in time for breakfast." He hangs up the phone and hurries out of the Clock Tower, making sure to close off the room and lock up behind himself.

By the time he gets home he's debating between a "traffic was a nightmare" excuse and "got a roadside assistance call" excuse to explain why he's almost an hour late. When he opens the door to the Talon apartment smoke pours out into the hall way and immediately into his lungs. "Chloe!" Dean screams out and he hears her coughing from the kitchen.

"I'm fine, help me get the window open." She calls back to him and hurries into the room and around the island. He can see the shape of Chloe leaning over the sink, trying to reach the edge of the window but she's just too short and she can't get the proper leverage with the crutches. He gently pushes her aside and flings the window open.

The smoke in the room immediately begins to thin as the small breeze outside pulls it from the apartment. Dean wipes at his eyes and looks around the room. "Why didn't the smoke detector go off?" He asks.

"It did." Chloe reaches beside her and retrieves a crumpled broken piece of plastic and wires. "I turned it off."

"With a shot gun?" Dean asks slightly amused.

"With one of my crutches." Chloe smiles.

"What happened?" Dean asks her and her smile fails. She nods behind him to the open oven and he sees a hard blackened lump of what he's assuming used to be pot roast. He tilts his head wondering how she manages to burn practically everything she cooks and sighs. "Still looks better than the chicken that one time." Dean offers and Chloe slaps him with the pot holder.

"What are we going to do for diner?" She asks upset.

"I'll be right back." Dean kisses her cheek and heads for the door. Twenty minutes later he comes back with two pizza boxes and the apartment is smoke free. The roast is sitting heavily in the bottom of the trashcan and Chloe is opening up a bottle of wine.

"Perfect timing." She smiles.

They eat diner, exchanging fake stories about their day. Chloe tells him about how she almost dropped one of the weights on her physical therapists toes and Dean tells her about a guy who came in complaining that he'd just spent three hundred dollars to get a radio installed in his car and it didn't work. After checking all the connections Dean realized that the man had simply failed to turn the thing on.

They sit and watch television for a while and when Chloe starts yawning Dean walks her over to the bed, waits for her to settle in then rests the crutches up against the wall. "Come to bed." Chloe mumbles to him half asleep and Dean kisses her forehead.

"In a minute." He promises her.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The sound of Chloe's phone is jarring in the complete silence of the apartment. She's been back for a while now and it still takes her a minute before she recognizes the noise for what it is. She slaps her arm around the nightstand until she finds the phone, cracks an eye open and stares at the screen catching the time first, 2 a.m., then the name of the caller. She answers the phone and brings it lazily up to her ear. "Sammy, do you have any idea what time it is?" She mumbles, still half asleep.

"Chloe, it's Dean."

"Dean?" Chloe frowns and rolls over, only to find the other side of the bed empty. Suddenly she sits up in bed, wide awake and scans her eyes through the darkened apartment. "He's not here." Chloe says slightly panicked.

"I know Chloe, he's with me." Sam says.

"And where is that?" She asks cautiously pushing herself to the edge of the bed very carefully.

"Topeka." Sam tells her as she reaches down and grabs the pair of jeans off the floor, wincing as she pulls them on. "More specifically St. Francis Hospital in Topeka."

"What are you doing in Topeka?" Chloe asks pushing herself to her feet with her jaw clenched. She keeps one hand on the nightstand as she reaches out as far as she can for the crutches balanced up against the wall. They're slightly too far out of her reach. Dean always puts them too far out of her reach because he doesn't think, because he's normally there get them for her. "Wait, did you say hospital?" She asks sinking back down to the mattress.

"There's been an accident." Sam tells her. She listens half in a daze while Sam explains what happened. They were out. Hunting. It was supposed to be a simple haunting but the ghost was a bit more violent than they had anticipated and it threw Dean out of a fourth story window. He somehow managed to land in a dumpster but by the time Sam had gotten to him, he was unconscious and not responding, he didn't have any other choice but to take him to a hospital.

Chloe assures him that she'll be there as soon as she can and she hangs up the phone, setting it back on the nightstand. She allows herself a few deep breaths before pushing herself back to her feet. She reaches out again for the crutches and stumbles, falling to the ground in a heap. She tries to push herself back up but she can't get enough leverage so she pushes herself along the floor until her back hits the bed. She grips the top edge of the mattress and pushes up as hard as she can until she's off the floor.

She has to take a minute to catch her breath before she forces herself back to her feet. She can hear her physical therapist's voice in her head saying, "Baby steps" so that's what she does. With both hands on the edge of the nightstand she inches her way over to the crutches.

Two and half hours after Sam's phone call she hobbles her way through the sliding glass doors of the ER and makes her way to the nurses' station. "Dean Winchester." She says simply and the nurse doesn't even bother looking up she simply turns to the computer and types in his name.

"And who are you to him?"

Chloe opens her mouth then stops, unsure exactly what to say. When she receives no answer the nurse does look up. "It's not a difficult question honey, who are you?"

"I—" She's not his fiancé. Though they've talked about marriage he hasn't actually bothered to propose to her. She could say sister but that would look suspicious after such a long pause and if she says anything else, girlfriend, or friend they won't tell her anything.

"Chloe!" Sam calls to her from down the hall, saving her, and Chloe lets out a sigh of relief. She turns away from the nurses' station and heads toward Sam.

"Where is he?" She asks when she makes it to him.

"In here." Sam nods over his shoulder. "He's fine, he's definitely got a concussion and he broke his arm but other than that he's fine." Chloe nods silently and turns to the Doctor for confirmation and he reiterates everything that Sam told her, giving her a prescription for some painkillers and telling her he's got to take it easy for a while.

"But he's free to go?" Chloe asks and the doctor nods before walking off.

"Look, I'm sorry to call you like this in the middle of the night but the Doctor gave him some painkillers and they won't let him drive and I'd have brought him back but I had to leave in the middle of the job, that ghost is still in there and-"

"It's fine Sammy." Chloe assures him and he lets out a sigh of relief.

"You look good." Sam offers her. "It's good to see you."

Chloe smiles at him. "It's good to see you too." She says. "You know you could visit more often."

"I—" Sam stops, he could visit more often but that would require lying to Chloe and where as Dean as obvious made a sport out of that, Sam still isn't very comfortable with it. But seeing as how he's just spilled the beans that isn't going to be a problem anymore. "You're right, I will make more of an effort to get out to Metropolis." He feels better when she beams at him and vows to visit as soon as he can. "Look, I really got to go."

"Go." Chloe pushes him toward the door.

"Chloe," Sam stops her with a soft hand on her arm. "Just go easy on him."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The curtain's been pulled but she can see Dean's silhouette, perched on the edge of the bed. "Finally." He says getting to his feet when he hears the door open and grabbing his jacket off the chair. "We've got to leave now if I have any hope of getting home before Chloe wakes up." He throws back the curtain and freezes. "I told Sam to call Oliver." Dean says lamely.

"Well he called me." Chloe sighs. They stare at each other for a while and then she holds out her hands. "Come on, let's go."

"I—" Dean starts then stops. "My car's at the office building, Sam brought me."

"You can come get it tomorrow." Chloe says and Dean looks as if he's about to protest. "You're not cleared to drive with all the medicine the Doctor pumped into you and I can't." She motions down to the crutches. "I had to wake Oliver's driver up at three in morning just to get here because it was either that or pay for a four hundred dollar cab ride so you can come get it tomorrow."

"Ok." Dean nods. "I'll come get it tomorrow." Satisfied Chloe turns and walks out of the room Dean following behind her.

The sun's just starting to rise by the time they make it back to the Talon apartment and the both of them trudge tired through the door. "Sit." Chloe commands and Dean obeys without thinking pulling a chair out from the table and collapsing into it. She drops a bottle of pills in front of him and then walks over to the fridge and starts pulling out butter and eggs and bacon.

"What are you doing?" Dean asks her.

"Making breakfast." She says, grabbing a pan and setting it on the stove.

"I'm not hungry." He tells her.

"Well you shouldn't take those on an empty stomach so it's either breakfast or left over cold pizza." Chloe says.

Dean shuts up as she turns on the stove and drops some butter in the pan. "Are we going to even talk about it?"

"About what Dean? The fact that you've been hunting behind my back or the fact that when you get hurt you'd rather call Oliver to pick you up instead of me because honestly I'm not sure which one I'm more upset about." She tells him.

"Look it was one time, Sam needed some help—"

"Please, don't." Chloe turns around and walks over to the table. "It was a simple haunting, Sam can do that in his sleep and don't sit there and tell me it was a one time thing Dean, I know ok, I've known for a while now. I know about San Antonio and Chicago and Memphis."

"You…" He looks up at her. "What?" He asks confused.

"So to answer your question, no I really don't want to talk about this right now. I'm exhausted, I'm hungry and I have a physical therapy session in two hours."

"Right, now it's Tuesday but I forget is Tuesdays a real physical therapy day or a fake physical therapy day?" Dean asks her and she freezes. "You know where you let me drop you off at the hospital but you never go in, instead you catch a cab to the Watchtower."

"You…" Chloe stares at him wide eyed. "How did you find out?"

"Oracle told me." Dean shrugs.

"God, she is such a tattle tale." Chloe groans with a laugh.

"How did you find out?" Dean asks her.

"Sam let something slip once and I got curious so I well…" She smiles then and pulls out her computer, turning it on. "Oracle can you open Operation Shadow Rockford?" Chloe asks and a large map pulls up on the screen. There are a few large red dots, two of them are in downtown Topeka and the other is in the middle of Smallville. Dean looks down at himself.

"That's my car and…you're tracking me?" Dean asks her incredulously. "How, where?" He starts to pat his pockets. "Wait a minute." He gets up and walks over to his nightstand, rummaging around until he finds what he's looking for. He walks back to the table and drops something in front of her. "Is this yours?"

"Yeah." Chloe picks up the small tracker and frowns. "Where did it come from?"

"Inside the steering column." He answers her.

"That was for sure the one I never thought you'd find." Chloe frowns. "What were you doing rummaging around inside the steering column?"

"There was an…incident. I had lost my keys and I needed to make a quick getaway." He says defensively.

"You hotwired the Impala?" Chloe's eyes widen comically and Dean winces.

"It wasn't my finest hour." He admits, the memory still stinging him a little. "I take it there are others?" He asks changing the subject.

"There's one in your phone, one in your watch and one in your wallet." Chloe tells him then looks back over at the screen. "If it makes you feel better they're on Sam too." She shrugs. "As for your car there's one in the back of the glove compartment, one under the weapons in the trunk and one under the engine block." Dean opens up his mouth. "I also have a program that checks the police records for any mention of your alias', all your old credit cards are flagged so if you use them I know." Chloe shrugs.

"Is that all?" Dean asks amused.

"Oh, and I modified Sam's drivers license, turned it into an RFID card, it's something Vic and I were working on before. It gives off a signal that allows me to remote access his laptop so that I know what he's researching, just in case you guys need any help."

"So it _was_ you?" Dean asks exasperated. "I told Sammy, I knew there was no way that all those people kept showing up, right when we needed them. Jo in Dallas, Victor in Albuquerque?" Chloe nods.

"I sent whoever was nearby." She admits.

"And in Boston. I didn't actually see him but Clark—"

"Yeah." Chloe nods swallowing hard remember Clark coming back holding a crumpled bullet in his hands which otherwise would have been inside Dean's chest. They'd cut that one a little close. "You didn't notice that I didn't talk to you for like two weeks after you got back?"

"No." Dean shakes his head. "I thought everything was normal."

"When exactly did we start living separate lives?" She asks him thinking about all the separate trips that they were each taking.

"I don't know, probably around the same time we stopped talking." Dean shrugs. They stare at each other in silence and then Dean's nose crinkles. "Do you smell something?"

Chloe looks at him in horror, "Breakfast." She says and he jumps to his feet, turning off the stove and pulling the pan away from the heat.

"Butter, you even burn butter I don't understand it." Dean says in astonishment and Chloe starts laughing and then he starts laughing and then they can't stop.

"Wait, I've got one question, how exactly where you planning on hiding that from me?" She motions to his cast.

"I would have come up with something." Dean assures her.

"Oh really?" Chloe crosses her arm over her chest. "About as brilliant as your excuse when you came home with those huge scratches all down the side of your neck?" Dean looks at her incredulous. "You really thought I believed that some feral cat had been hiding in some old ladies engine and jumped out and attacked you when you went to change her oil?"

"Hey, I'll have you know that story was actually true." Dean bristles and Chloe laughs again. "Now the story I told you about swerving to miss a deer and hitting a telephone pole, that was made up."

"I believed that one." Chloe slaps his arm playfully.

"Yeah I was actually swerving to miss this well, zombie, you should have been there, Sam screamed like a girl." Dean smirks and Chloe leans forward eager to hear the story. "So we're in Mobile…"

Two hours later Dean grabs the last slice of cold pizza from the box and notices the clock on the microwave. "You missed your session." He tells Chloe.

"I can reschedule." She shrugs happily. They'd just been talking, about everything about anything and it felt good. She reaches across the table and grabs a slice of pepperoni of his pizza and tosses it in her mouth.

"So what do you in the Watchtower all day?" Dean asks, tearing off the crust and handing it to Chloe.

She pauses for a second, the food halfway to her mouth. "Do you want to see?" She asks pushing herself to her feet and Dean drops the pizza to the counter and wipes his hand on his pants.

"Yeah I think I would." He nods.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

When they get to the Watchtower Dean has to stop a second. He remembers staying here right after Chloe got moved to Metropolis General for a few weeks but the place had reminded him too much of her and so Lois had offered up the Talon apartment. Oliver had covered everything in dust cloths and said that the Watchtower was Chloe's and they would shut it down until she was back in it. He hadn't been back since.

The dust clothes were still on everything but Chloe's equipment now and the only other sign that anyone ever came there were the take out containers in the trash and the dirty coffee mugs in the sink. "I was having a hard time coping after I woke up. You guys could tell I know you could but it was like you were afraid to say something to me and I was afraid to say something to you because well, I'd been so strong for so long I wasn't sure how to admit weakness."

"I would have understood." Dean assures her, stepping closer to the desk.

"I know, but I didn't even know what was wrong, I couldn't figure out how to put in into words. I mean I understood that everyone came back but I think because I'd been so isolated at first, spending four months after I woke up in the hospital, that it didn't mean anything to me. I knew what it meant that you guys were back because I saw you every day, but I couldn't really seem to grasp the enormity of it all because it _was_ so enormous. Nothing was different." Chloe explains. "Nothing was different, but everything had changed." She pointed out. "You guys got to go out into the world and experience it and I didn't until a few months after I woke up and by then I think it was too late." She turned away from Dean rapidly typing something on the computer screen.

"I got the idea from a guy I met in Physical Therapy. Corporal Graham Fisher, he's a marine, was stationed in Afghanistan. He got injured in a roadside bombing and sent back stateside for PT." Chloe smiles softly. "The first time I walked in the room he stopped what he was doing and stood at attention. He remembered. He'd survived the first wave of the virus and then ended up stationed in Georgia. He said he got to fight with me at the battle of Macon." Dean shivered he remembered that battle, it was particularly bad.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"_Did you make it to St. Mary's?" Chloe asks panting on the balance ball as Graham finishes his last few reps on the weight machine. _

"_Oh yeah." He smiles strangely. "That was some fight." _

_Chloe grabs her water bottle and takes a long gulp. "Did you die?" She knows it's a strange question but he doesn't laugh._

_Graham nods, setting the weights down and then sitting up. Chloe hands him a towel to wipe his face. "When I woke up on that field, I thought I was in heaven at first. Then when we'd all realized what happened, what it meant, man I tore out of that place so fast. Made it back home to Texas in record time. I remember knocking on my mama's door and holding my breath. She didn't make it past the first stage of the virus." He softens. "But then she opened that door and I don't think I've ever hugged someone so hard in all my life. And she didn't remember a thing. No one did, my sister, her husband, they all died in the first stage but they didn't even remember it. The more people I talked to, shops I went in the more people I realized had no clue what happened." _

"_How did you cope?" Chloe asks._

"_No one else remembered, but I remembered. For a while there I thought I'd gone crazy. I'd done a tour in Iraq before everything went down and I was going to blame the whole thing on some delayed form of PSTD, maybe get some counseling but then I thought about those guys I was stationed with in Macon. They weren't from my unit before, I'd never met them before so I thought if they were real then I wasn't crazy, so I looked a few of them up on Facebook." _

_"Did you find them?" Chloe asks. _

"_First guy I found was Rodriguez." He smiles. "This dude was crazy, he was a bomb guy, the ones who go in and disarm them you know like in that movie. I find his Facebook page and he was real, but that didn't really mean anything until I saw his status. It said, 'I'm not on the list'." Chloe looks confused so Graham elaborates. "That's what we used to say to each other after a fight, a sound off to make sure everyone was alive. We'd say we weren't on the list." _

_Then Chloe gets it, the list of the dead, they weren't on the list of the dead. "That helped? Knowing someone else out there remembered?" _

"_A little." Graham nods. "Between the two of us we tracked down the rest of our unit and they all remembered. The thing was, a few of those guys never made it to St. Mary's. A few of them got infected before the cure and we had to—I had to—" Chloe puts a hand on his knee to tell him she understands. "We set up a time, we were all gonna drive down to Macon and meet up, have a few drinks, reminisce. I don't think I really got it until I walked into that bar and had a beer with the guys that I…" He trails off. _

"_The ones that you killed?" Chloe asks and he nods. _

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"So the next day you dropped me off at the hospital but I came here instead. I made this." She opens up a web browser and types in an address, and a page pops up on the screen. Dean looks at it confused and Chloe takes pity on him. "Oracle, pull up the Today Show clip." Chloe smiles and the screen splits, on one side is the website on the other Meredith Vieira on the set of the Today Show smiling down at Dean.

"_I'm sure no one ever imagined the day when a new social networking site would come along that might rival Facebook but we here at the Today Show think we might have just found it. It's called "The List", the address is ._ _The owner and creator of the site is unknown. It showed up a little over two weeks ago seemingly out of nowhere. News of the website has spread through other social networks like MySpace, Twitter, and yes, even Facebook and through good old fashioned word of mouth." _

"_There are no walls to post on, no groups you can join. There is no place to post photos, no status' to update, and absolutely no poking. You don't even have to have an e-mail address. It asks nothing of you but your name. The entire site is nothing more than one long list of names. _

_When we visited the site yesterday morning, a mere two weeks after its launch, it already contained over 200,000 names. This morning when we checked it before air, that number had more than tripled to a staggering 750,000 names. It was estimated that before this segment is over, the number will be far beyond 1,000,000 names. And that's all it is, names with a question at the top, "Are you one of the living?" _

_You can add your name to the list if you want but you don't have to. It also gives you the option to sign up for e-mail alerts, you can get daily or weekly updates of all the new names added or if you want to you can enter in a specific name and receive an e-mail when only that name has been added."_

"_There are no ads on the site, no way to make money off of it and as far as we can tell, no reason for it. It doesn't appear to be a scam, or a trick, or a marketing ploy. It simply appears to be what it is, a list of names. The site itself is simple in design but apparently very complex in its programming. To talk to us a little more about it is Craig Markson, an internet securities expert formerly with Microsoft now working for the government."_ They pan out and there's a man on the couch next to Meredith, graying hair, dark glasses, wearing a non descript suit. _"Is it safe?"_

"_It's completely secure."_ Craig tells her. "_For one thing it doesn't ask you for any information other than your name so there isn't really any information to gain from hacking it. Also, even if you tried to hack the site you'd fail. I couldn't hack it, the best people I know couldn't hack it, I hear there's even a contest out in the underground community, offering a reward for the first person who can crack the code." _

"_It's un-hackable?' _

"_It's…I hesitate to use that word but yeah." _Craig nods. _"It was weird. It seemed like no matter what method I tried to get into it, it found a way to stop me, almost as if it was learning from me." _

"_You're saying 'it' like the website itself is keeping you out." _Meredith says.

"_That's how it felt."_ Craig shrugs. _"I sounds crazy, I know but the other's I've talked to have all said the same thing." _

"_So you can't get in?"_ Meredith says.

"_As far as I know, no one can get in. Which means that the site can't be altered by any third party. The only thing you can do to it, is add your name. Anyone can add a name, can add as many names as they want which lends itself to nothing more heinous than juvenile pranks. The sight is updated in real time and we noticed people adding fake names, or even names of dead people, but those were usually taken down with in the hour._

"_So someone out there is policing the list?"_ Meredith asks.

"_It would seem that way but a cursory check shows that the website itself hasn't been accessed by anyone since its creation." _Craig shrugs.

"_Wouldn't whoever had the ability to create something like this want to brag about it." _Meredith asks.

"_They would, which is why it's so strange that no one will come forward claiming to be the sites creator. Hell I'm starting to wonder if it even has a creator." _Craig jokes. "_Maybe it was born from the internet itself." _

"_Immaculate website creation." _Meredith offers and Craig laughs. "_So it's safe?"_

"_As far as I can tell."_ Craig smiles. _"I added my name last week."_

"_I added mine yesterday."_ Meredith says and turns to Matt Lauer. _"Are you on list?"_

"_I am."_ Matt nods. _"I added my name this morning."_ He turns to Meredith. _"You know I think that's going to be the number one question in the country for a while, 'Are you on the list?' what do you think?"_

"_I think you might be right."_ Meredith turns to the camera. _"So, are you on the list? Let us know at our website: .com."_

The video ends and Dean turns back to the list. The count at the bottom now reads a little over 10,000,000. "It kind of took off after that aired." Chloe says sheepishly.

"How did I not know about this?" Dean asks.

"Well you're not really a big internet person, I mean unless is demon research or you know porn." Chloe shrugs and Dean cracks a smile.

"So you made this?" Dean asks astonished.

"Technically Oracle created it, I just came up with the idea. I kept thinking about that other list, the list of the dead and I thought about Rodriguez and Graham and they're not on that list, they're not dead anymore and people need to know that, _I_ need to know that." Chloe says. "So I figured the easiest way to do that was to make another list."

"But you're not on it?" Dean asks confused looking for her name.

"I don't think I'm ready for that just yet." Chloe answers truthfully. "There are still some things I think I need to do, to see, before I think I can be..."

"One of the living?" Dean asks.

"Yeah." Chloe nods.

"This is what you do? You sit here all day and check the names on the list?" Dean asks her.

"God no, Oracle takes care of all that." Chloe shakes her head. "I do this." She pulls a good old fashioned whiteboard out from behind the large computer monitor and Dean moves closer to look at the lists of names and places.

"Another list?" Dean asks confused.

"Sort of." Chloe puts her hands in her pocket and waits for him to understand.

"These are…" He turns around to her. "These are the people you killed." He says. "Personally."

"Not all of them obviously. I didn't stop every demon to ask the name of its vessel but the ones I remembered." Chloe nods. Dean understands that to mean the ones she regrets without her having to say it. "Graham said he didn't get it until he was sitting down having a beer with the people he killed so…"

"You have a beer with them?" Dean asks confused.

"No." Chloe rolls her eyes. "I just go and see them. Make sure they're really there. None of them have even remembered me so far. I just like to know that they're okay I guess." Chloe shrugs, feeling foolish.

"And are they?" Dean asks her with a soft smile.

"This is Kevin Reynolds." Chloe says pointing a familiar picture on the board. "You may remember him as Barbas' preferred vessel." Dean nods remembering. "I went and saw him yesterday. He lives in Kansas City with his lovely wife and four kids. He lost his job recently and they had to take a second mortgage out on the house but he's alive and he's not one of the Hollow Men anymore so." Chloe turns to Dean and he throws an arm over her shoulder. "Plus, I hear he just got a job offer from Queen Industries so I think they'll be alright."

"Chloe you can't help everyone you know?"

"I know." She nods. "But I can help him." She pushes the board back to its place and shuts down Oracle's screen.

"Why did you hide this from me?" Dean asks her.

"I don't know. You guys didn't seem to be having any problems adjusting and it was different for me. I mean everything that happened, happened to all of you but, it happened because of me and I still don't know how I feel about that or what that means, how could I explain it to you? I didn't think you'd understand." Chloe sits down. "And then in the hospital you just kept going on and on about having a normal life finally and not worrying about demons and when ever Oliver tried to bring up me coming back as Watchtower you got this look on your face so I brushed him off and I thought that's what you wanted." Chloe looks over at him. "Why did you hide hunting from me?"

"I didn't want you to worry? I didn't want you to…you didn't talk about anything after it happened. You didn't talk about anything much less what went down that day. Then you were having such a hard time I thought the best thing would be to just keep you away from all of it, the hunting and Oliver and his Meta's. So the whole normal life thing was…I thought that's what you wanted. And I tried for a while there I really did. I didn't go out with Sam when he asked, I stayed away from that life and I actually did work in a garage for a while but I'm a hunter, it's in my genes." Dean shrugs.

"Ok, can we both agree that we're idiots and that really need to work on communication and that we'll stop hiding stuff from each other?" Chloe laughs.

"Yes, please. It was getting harder and harder to come up with reasons for a mechanic to go out of town so much." Dean groans.

"I don't care if you want to hunt Dean, I actually love that you still fight even after everything, hell if I could walk more than a foot without holding onto something I'd be out there with you." Chloe tells him. "I just need to know where you are so I'm not getting surprise phone calls in the middle of the night that you've been in an accident. That really scared me."

"I'm sorry." Dean pulls her closer and kisses her forehead. "And I want you to know you don't have to do it alone. It can't be easy, seeing all those people again so if you ever want some company."

"I might just take you up on that." Chloe tells him.

"And if you ever do want to talk about what happened, I'm here."

"I know, but I'm not quite ready for that just yet." Chloe admits.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

By the end of the week Chloe has the Watchtower re-opened, no more dust clothes, no more hiding in the dark. She gets Oracle back to doing what Oracle does best, Oliver and his team back to doing what they do best and before the month is over they're are already checking out a possible 33.1 in Arizona. It's just like old times, only it's better.

Because now the Watchtower isn't just for superheroes it's for hunters too. Dean moves out of Oliver's clock tower setting up his desk next to Chloe's, his bookcase full of old leather bounds books next to her server farm. Oracle, more than capable of doing two things at once as she constantly reminds them, stays on top of her duties for the JLA, keeps up with , and also maintains the site Chloe made for hunters, another things that managed to carry over after the change.

In two months they've got a reputation for being a safe haven for hunters. Anyone is welcome to come by whenever they need to for whatever they need. Most of them are just looking for the next job, a few of them for discrete medical care which Emil happily provides, some of them just need someone to talk to and a home cooked meal. This all means that the Watchtower is generally pretty busy.

So when Chloe walks in one day to find only Dean and Bobby hunched over Dean's desk, she's surprised but not necessarily disappointed. Dean meets her at the door, taking the bag from her as she sets the crutches against the wall. Her Physical Therapist had suggested she might try not relying on them so much. She's not ready to go completely without support however and Dean knows this so he slips his arm in hers and helps her to her desk. "How was your trip?" He asks.

"Great." Chloe smiles. "There's some pie for you in my bag. Hey Bobby." She leans over and offers him a peck on the cheek, smiling at the small blush that rises on his cheeks then turns to Dean. "There's more than enough pie for two." She says pointedly and Dean actually pouts as she scratches Beverly's name off her board.

"Can you stay for dinner?" Chloe asks.

Bobby pauses. "Are you cooking?" He asks her and she glares at him.

"I will be if you don't watch your tone." Chloe challenges him and he snorts.

"I can't." Bobby says. "Gotta get to Tulsa." He grabs the papers he and Dean had been looking through.

"Oh, helping Jo out with her 'Woman in White'?" Chloe asks and he nods. "Fine, but stop by on your way back through." Chloe tells him and it sounds more like an order than a suggestion. "I'll get take out."

"Deal." Bobby kisses her cheek this time and heads for the door.

Dean helps Chloe to her chair and she lowers herself into it slowly, then he perches himself on the edge of her desk, checking out her wall. "There's only one name left on there." Dean points out.

"I've been saving that one." Chloe admits. "I'm not sure I can do it alone."

"Sure." Dean turns back to the board and frowns. "The Barringers, who are the Barringers?" He asks and looks more closely at the sheet and pauses. "Wait a minute, I know that address." He says slowly.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean can see Chloe's entire body clench the second he turns onto the familiar street. He wasn't sure she'd even been aware enough the last time they were here to recognize the place but apparently enough of the surroundings seeped into her subconscious. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Dean asks, slowing the car as they get closer, eventually stopping in front of 1630 Revello Drive, home of the Barringers.

"Yeah." Chloe stares up at the house. There are two rocking chairs swaying idly on the large wraparound porch. "Yes, I want to do this." She nods decisively so he puts the car in park and turns it off.

"Ok, then." He grabs her crutches from the trunk and brings them to her. She takes her time, making her way slowly up the front walk and Dean keeps pace with her, staying by her side. When they're a little more than halfway there the front door swings open and a boy, about nine or ten comes barreling out of the house and down the porch steps.

Chloe's breath hitches in her throat and her hand reaches out, grasping onto Dean's arm in a vice like grip. "Dean." She whispers. She's seen that boy before, only the last time she saw him, he was dead, clutched tight against the chest of his mother.

"I know." He tells her, trying to sooth her and her grip slackens just a bit. The kid is so intent in his getaway that he doesn't even see Chloe and Dean has to hold out a hand to keep him from slamming into her. "Whoa there." Dean smiles at him.

"Tyler." A woman scolds him from the doorway. "Watch where you're going and tell the lady you're sorry."

"Sorry." Tyler throws Chloe's way.

"It's fine." She assures him. "I'm fine."

"Where are you going in such a hurry anyway?" The woman steps out onto the porch, tossing the dish towel in her hands over her shoulder.

"Just across the street to play in Matthew's yard." Tyler says exasperated.

"Fine, but you stay in our yard or Matthew's yard, don't go wandering off. Dinner will be ready soon."

"Fine." Tyler grunts and runs across the street where a few other kids are running around playing a lazy game of soccer.

"Sorry about him, they're just a big ball of energy at that age you know. Can I help you?" The woman walks down the porch steps and smiles at Chloe and Dean.

Chloe opens her mouth but nothing comes out, all she can see in her mind's eye is the woman in front of her, lifeless, huddled up in a corner. "Yes, I'm Dean, this is Chloe. We're interested in buying the house down the street, but we're new to the area and we wanted to get a feel for the neighborhood first."

"I'm Keri." She steps forward and shakes Dean's hand. "It's a great place to live." She turns to Chloe and smiles sheepishly as Chloe tries to figure out how to stay upright and shake Keri's hand at the same time. "I'm so sorry, I'm being rude you must be…come inside. I just made some fresh coffee, I'll tell you all about the area, what stores to shop at, which neighbors to avoid, what schools are the best." Keri turns around and heads back to the house, Chloe and Dean following behind her. "Do you have any kids?"

"No." Chloe says.

"Are you planning on having kids?" Keri glances behind her.

"Eventually, yes." Dean answers catching Chloe slightly off guard.

"This is a great neighborhood for kids." Keri says. "It's really safe."

"I'm sure it is." Chloe steps into the house and is immediately brought back to that day. It looks exactly the same, minus the dead body on the couch and the stale smell in the air.

"David, we've got guests." Keri calls out as they walk into the kitchen. There's a man at the sink furiously scrubbing his hands and Chloe assumes this is David. "This is Chloe and Dean, they're interested in the Miller's house."

"That's a great house." David says. "They've got the pool right?"

"No." Keri answers before Chloe or Dean have to. "That's the Meyers, the Millers have the theater room in the basement."

"Oh right." David smiles. "Well, it's a great neighborhood. Sorry I'd shake your hand but—" He holds up his hands which are covered in grease, despite his vigorous scrubbing from earlier. "I've been working on my car all morning."

"Is it running yet?" Keri asks.

"Not exactly." David winces.

"Hey." Dean says, laying a hand in the small of Chloe's back. She's frozen in the doorway to the kitchen staring at the corner. "It's ok." He whispers in her ear.

Chloe looks over where David is threatening a laughing Keri with his nasty greasy hands and Chloe takes in a deep breath. "Yeah, it is." She steps into the kitchen and smiles.

"You know, David, I've got a bit of experience working on cars. My dad was a mechanic and I do all the work on my own car. I can take a look if you want." Dean offers.

"I'd really appreciate it actually." David nods him to the back door and Dean follows him out.

"He doesn't have to do that." Keri says to Chloe.

"Oh, he wants to." Chloe says. "If he didn't love his car so much, I'd go so far as to say he breaks it on purpose sometimes just so he can fix it."

"Sit please." Keri pulls a chair out and Chloe slowly lowers herself down into, balancing the crutches against the table. Keri sets a cup of coffee and a platter of cookies in front of Chloe and then sits down opposite her. "If you don't mind my asking, what—" Keri grabs a cookie and motions to Chloe's crutches.

"There was an accident." Chloe says vaguely but Keri just nods. "So tell me about the neighborhood, have you lived here long?"

"We moved in just before Tyler was born so almost ten years now. We love it." Keri tells her honestly.

Less than thirty minutes later David and Dean come back in the house and find Keri and Chloe laughing hysterically. "Look at that fast friends already." David smiles.

"I take it you managed to get the car started?" Keri got up to refill Chloe's mug.

"Oh yeah, Dean figured it out in about five minutes. Runs better than before." David turns on the water and they take turns washing their hands.

"Then what have you been doing out there for almost half an hour?"

"Having a beer in the garage." David smiles. "So did she convince you to buy? I think you'd be a great addition to the neighborhood and I was just telling Dean, there's enough room downstairs at the Miller's you could add a third bath for not too much out of pocket and it would really increase your property value."

"You just want a mechanic down the street and a fifth for Friday night poker." Keri says as a timer goes off somewhere. "That would be my pot roast." She grabs for a pot holder and pulls a pan out of the oven. "You guys should stay for dinner."

"No, thanks, we don't want to intrude, plus it's getting late, we should probably head out." Chloe pushes herself to her feet.

"Right then, I'll walk you to the door." Keri smiles and follows them to the door.

As Dean helps Chloe down the front steps Keri calls across the street, "Tyler! Dinner!"

"Five more minutes mom." Tyler calls back.

"No, now." Keri says and looks at Chloe. "Kids huh?"

Chloe laughs but stops at the sound of a very familiar bark. She swings her head around across the street and her breath catches when she sees Malachi chasing after Tyler. "You have a beautiful dog." Chloe says, her voice shaky, she hadn't realized until this moment how much she'd missed him.

"Oh, he's not ours." Keri steps down and walks over by Chloe. "He's not anyone's as far as we know. He's got no tags and we've seen no signs. He just showed up one day, a few weeks ago, started hanging around the neighborhood. I'd call animal control but he's really gentle, great with the kids and I'm afraid they might put him down. I see him sometimes, staring down the street, it's weird it's almost like he's waiting for something."

Chloe takes a deep breath and then whistles. Malachi stops chasing Tyler immediately and swings his head around and stares at her before taking off running, straight for her. Chloe lets her crutches drop to the side and she falls to her knees just as Malachi comes to a stop in front of her. She buries her hands in his fur, clutching at the skin under his ears and he licks her face with abandon, his tail wagging wilding. "Good boy." Chloe laughs, resting her forehead on his. "I missed you too."

"Wow, he really likes you." Keri says. "It's like he knows you or something."

"Or something." Chloe agrees.

Dean turns to Keri and smiles. "You sure he doesn't belong to anyone?"

Five minutes later they're driving out of the neighborhood, Malachi lying on the front seat his head in Chloe's lap. Dean can't help but think about how similar this is to the last time he drove out of this neighborhood, Chloe sitting quietly at his side, Malachi lying in her lap but that's where the similarities end. Chloe's face is relaxed calm, almost at peace this time around. He thinks about where they'd been heading last time and where they were heading this time and he relaxes. "Back home?" Dean asks.

"No." Chloe takes a deep breath. "I'd like to make just one more stop if that's alright."

"Of course." Dean glances over at her. "Where to?"

"The camp." She says and Dean just nods. She turns to look at him then, shifting completely in her seat to face him. "That's what you want right?" She asks him. "That's what you're waiting for?"

"What?"

"What Keri and David have. I mean the house in the suburbs, I mean working on your car on a Sunday afternoon and having a beer in the garage while I make a pot roast? Kids playing in the yard, Friday night poker games with the neighbors?" Dean thinks about it for a minute.

He never had that growing up, living out of the Impala and motel rooms. He made the most of it at first because his dad always told him how soldiers didn't complain and the second his mom died he became a soldier and because he had to put up a brave face for Sammy. So when Sammy came home from school upset because the other kids had backyards and sleepovers, he acted like he loved it, pretended like living in motels was so much cooler than living in a house and pointed out that someone had to mow those yards and Dean wasn't going to do it so it would have been Sam's job and eventually Sam stopped complaining but Dean never stopped wanting.

By the time he got to high school he'd resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't ever going to have that, a place to call home, the knowledge that no matter what he always had a place to go to, a place that was safe, a place that was his and he tried to make himself hate it, hate the normalcy of it, hate the people who got to experience it and take it for granted and at some point he maybe even convinced himself that was true but apparently he hadn't been able to convince Chloe.

"Yes." Dean finally admits out loud and suddenly the longing is so strong for it that he can taste it.

"I don't know that I can give you that." Chloe says sadly, still staring out of the window."

"What do you mean?" Dean asks, fear gripping his heart at her words.

She turns to him and sighs, "I would do anything for you but I don't know that I'll ever be able to give you that. I like helping Oliver, I like my work with the Justice League and I like helping the hunters and I can't stop doing that, I can't turn my back on that fight because that's who I am and I don't think I could do that and be the picture perfect Donna Reed wife and mother and I think that's what you're looking for."

Dean wants to protest but Chloe's obviously not finished. "I'm not cut out for suburban life Dean, that's just not me, paying Suzie homemaker and organizing block parties. You've seen firsthand my attempt at a pot roast and if you think my cooking's bad you should try my baking, seriously I make the most dreadful chocolate chip cookie you'll ever have. I'm not kidding you could never believe in your wildest dreams that a simple chocolate chip cookie could taste so bad and I absolutely hate mini-vans, abhor them really. I don't care about increasing my property value with a third bathroom and who needs a movie theater in their basement—"

"Chloe." Dean snaps at her, drawing her out of her tantrum. "That's not what I want."

He'd never really given much thought to what exactly he wanted, never allowed himself to because it would just hurt too much when he didn't get it. But now, with the future wide open in front of him, with more possibilities available to him than he ever thought he'd have, he knows exactly what he wants.

"I want to build a life with you. I want to be with you. And I'd never ask you to give up doing what you love, I wasn't planning on giving up hunting. I love that you help Oliver, I love that you help the hunters, I love that even after everything you still want to fight the good fight and I want to fight it right there with you. And we could live wherever you wanted to, we could live on a farm like Clark of even in the city, except not at the Watchtower because as much as you love that place I need some privacy and you need to be able to shut off that part of your life and just be Chloe, with no missions and no jobs." Dean smiles.

"And the suburbs aren't that bad. Malachi would probably love a yard to run around in and sure we wouldn't have a movie theater in the basement, it would probably be more like a secret underground command center and I think you'd actually be pretty great at organizing a block party and who says chocolate chips cookies have to be made from scratch, you know they sell the premade cookie dough now, already cut into perfect serving sizes you just have to stick them in the oven." He jokes and she laughs. "I want a life with you Chloe."

"And kids?" She asks hesitantly.

"Yeah, I mean well, eventually." Dean stutters and Chloe can see a soft blush rise on his neck. "Why? Don't you want kids?" He looks over at her quickly.

"Yeah." Chloe nods. "I do."

"Good, that's…that's good." Dean smiles and trains his eyes back on the road.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dean stops the car when they make it into the old archery range. He cuts off the engine and pulls the key from the ignition. "It looks exactly the same." Dean marvels, staring at the camp grounds.

"Oliver hasn't done anything to it." Chloe tells him. "I mean he cleared the guns out just in case and cleaned out Emil's lab, but other than that, he hasn't touched it." She frowns. "It looks empty." Chloe says quietly.

"It _is_ empty." Dean tells her.

He opens his door and Malachi jumps out of the car and immediately heads for the porch of Chloe's old cabin, settling down in his usual spot, his tail wagging. Dean shakes his head then walks around the car, popping the trunk and grabbing Chloe's crutches and a shovel then walking to her side of the car and pulling her door open for her.

"Where to?" He swigs the shovel over his shoulder.

"Behind Emil's lab, into the woods." Chloe says and they head off in that direction, she whistles to Malachi. "Come on boy." The dog jumps to his feet and happily trails after them. Dean helps her when they get into the woods and there's tree roots and things to maneuver around. "Here." Chloe stops suddenly when they get into a small clearing. "Right here."

"You want me to dig here?" Dean asks looking around, there's nothing there.

Chloe nods and makes her way over to a small stump, lowering herself onto it. Malachi sits down next to her and rests his chin on her leg. "Please."

"Ok." Dean slams the shovel into the ground and starts digging. Two hours later the entire clearing has been dug up and Dean is covered in sweat and dirt and there are blisters all over his hands. "Nothing, there's nothing here." He looks over and that statement brings another secret smile to Chloe's face. "What were you expecting me to find?"

"Nothing." Chloe breathes a sigh of relief. "Nothing." She says again and Dean thinks, then remembers something Castiel said to him a long time ago.

"_When they die, she buries them. Digs their graves at night in the woods, just her and a shovel."_

"This is where you buried them." He looks around the clearing. "Where you buried the bodies of the infected?" Chloe nods as a tear falls down her face.

"And there not here anymore." She lets out a sort of watery laugh, wiping at the tears.

"You're happy about this right?" Dean asks. "This is a good thing."

"Yes." Chloe says. "This is a good thing."

Dean smiles up at her. "So can I stop digging?" Chloe laughs and nods and Dean lets the shovel drop to the ground before collapsing next to it. Chloe pushes off of the stump, lowering herself unsteadily to the ground next to him. He doesn't hesitate, moving his head to lie in her lap and Malachi walks over, lying across the both of them. Chloe brings one hand up to scratch behind Malachi's ears and the other to Dean's head, running her fingers through his hair.

"After you died." Chloe says suddenly. "I was tempted, so tempted to just let him have it." Dean doesn't have to ask who he is or what Chloe was going to let him have. "I mean it seemed pointless to fight anymore because you were dead and Sam was dead and I didn't know, if we won, that I would be strong enough to do it without you. But then—" Chloe cuts off and Dean looks up at her.

"You don't have to."

"I _want_ to." Chloe assures him. "Then I thought of you. I thought about how strong you were. How you said no even if it meant that I had to say yes. How you trusted me to do the right thing, trusted me so much you died for me and I knew I couldn't give in. It was you Dean, I didn't give up because of you."

Dean stares at her unsure of what to say to that, unsure if he even can speak after hearing that and Chloe saves him the trouble by continuing her story. "Then something happened and I wasn't on the field anymore…" Chloe lets out a breath and tells Dean everything. It's easier than she thought it would be to explain her conversation with God, it's harder, so much harder than she thought when she gets to the part about Joshua and the sacrifice that she made, that the both of them made. But he's there, listening to the whole thing, his hand warm and strong in hers and that makes it easier.

When she finishes, they lay there, just the two of them together in silence, watching as the sun dips down behind the lake. Chloe knows it's not her picturesque sunset on a secluded beach in her weird utopian dreamland. The ground is slightly damp and it's actually pretty chilly and she has no idea how but there's dirt in her underwear but, it still a thousand times better because it's real. It gets even more real when Dean breaks the moment. "I don't have to fill all this back in do I?" He asks and pulls himself to his feet surveying the area.

"No." Chloe laughs struggling to pull herself up. He leans down, grabbing her hands and lifting her to her feet in one quick smooth motion. It startles her and she lets out a bark of laughter. "I need my crutches." She reminds him.

He just stares at her and lifts her wrists over his head. She locks her hands together around his neck and he trails his fingers down her arms, past her shoulders and to her waist, gripping her tight, holding her steady. "Lean on me for a while." He offers and she nods, somewhat shyly.

He just can't take it anymore and leans forward capturing her mouth with his. It makes him realize how long it's been since he'd really kissed her and slides his tongue softly along the outline of her lips. She makes a greedy little moan in the back of her throat at that and Dean growls and pulls her closer, slotting their hips together. That reminds him of the last time they actually slept together. She'd been in a coma for almost a year and then she was recovering from the coma and by then it had been so long that he didn't even notice. But he notices now, so much so he wants to head to their old cabin to check and see if Oliver had gotten around to clearing out the beds yet.

Her knees give out suddenly bringing him back to reality and he'd like to think it's because of his kissing but he knows it's due to the strain on her muscles. Reluctantly he pulls his mouth away from hers and slides one arm up her back and another under her knees, lifting her up against his chest. She laughs again and kisses him softly as they head back to the car. "What about my crutches?" Chloe asks, looking at where they're lying against the stump.

"I'll get you another set when we get home." Dean says seriously, planning on breaking a few speed limits on the way.

"And what happens until then?" Chloe asks him, unable to wipe the smile off her face.

"Until then? I'll just carry you." He says matter of factly.

"You don't have do that Dean, really put me down, I'll use the crutches." Chloe tells him.

"No." He shakes his head. "You carried me—you carried everyone for two years. It's my turn now."

"Ok." Chloe whispers, a soft blush gracing her cheeks.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chloe lets her head fall back into the pillow, a smile on her face, desperately trying to catch her breath. Her body aches all over but this isn't like the ache she gets after physical therapy this is a good ache, a comfortable ache, an ache that she hasn't felt in a while. Dean collapses on the bed behind her, a heavy arm draping over her stomach, pulling her back up against his chest. Her skin is still tingling and it's like all her nerves are extra sensitive and she can't stop the moan that escapes when he drops a soft kiss to her shoulder. "Again?" He asks half exasperated, half excited by the prospect. "Give me an hour nap first ok, I'm not as young as I used to be."

Chloe laughs and turns around in his arms so she's facing him. "You've had almost two years." She reminds him and he smiles, loving that she noticed how long it had been as well. She can't believe how easy it had been for her and Dean to come together again, like they'd never been apart. She reaches out and traces the lines of his face, her fingertips ghosting over his cheeks and down the strong line of his jaw and then across the soft skin of his mouth. Even in his exhaustion he leans into her touch, whimpering when she removes her fingers only to be satisfied when she replaces them with her lips. "Maybe I don't need a nap." He jokes against her lips and slides a leg between her thighs.

And Chloe can't help it she pulls away and laughs settling down on the pillow, her forehead touching his. "What did you mean earlier when you asked if that's what I was waiting for?" Dean whispers, running his fingers up and down her sides.

Chloe pauses, trying to remember what he's talking about and when she does, she feels a blush creep up her cheeks. "I mean, well, it's just, we've talked about getting married, as far as everyone else is concerned we're pretty much married already, but you never—you haven't proposed yet."

"Oh, sorry." Dean smiles and moves closer, lightly brushing the tip of his nose against hers. "Marry me." He whispers.

Chloe's breath hitches in her throat but rolls her eyes, putting her hands on his chest and tries to push him away. "Not funny." He grabs her wrists holding her hands in place, not letting her pull away.

"Not joking." He says seriously, he rolls away, not letting go of her wrists as he digs for something in his bedside drawer. When he rolls back around he's holding a small black ring box. "I've had this for three months I just didn't know…I've never done anything like this before. But I can wait, do the whole down on one knee thing if you want."

"No." Chloe looks at the box and shakes her head. "No, now's fine."

"Ok." Dean nods and opens the box. "Marry me."

"Yeah, I think I can do that." Chloe whispers as he slides the ring onto her finger. She reaches forward and kisses him again, trying to show him everything she can't say. They still have some things to work out, some problems to work through but they'll stick it out because neither of them are quitters and because he promised her forever. She can't guarantee that forever will go smoothly. She might push him away again, he might let her. They'll fight, probably a lot and he might even leave once or twice, but that's ok because she knows he'll always come back.

Neither of them are very good at the whole relationship thing and they're doing the best they can, but this, right here, this they never got wrong. Chloe pulls her lips away from his when his kisses slow, become languid. "So what happens now?" He asks her.

"I think we deserve a vacation." Chloe says suddenly.

"Hey, as long as it doesn't involve digging I'm there." Dean assures her.

"No, no digging." Chloe thinks for a second. "How do you feel about tomatoes?"

Dean frowns and Chloe explains to him the concept of the Tomatina festival in Spain. "A giant food fight." He smiles. "Awesome." She laughs and then says that as long as they're in Spain, it would just be a quick train ride to Paris, maybe she could visit her dad. From there Dean points out they could head to Italy and then maybe even Greece and in a little under an hour they've planned a month long European trip.

Chloe slips out of the bed after he falls asleep and makes her way slowly across the apartment, supporting herself with the mattress then the walls because Dean really had left her crutches in the middle of the woods. She stops when she gets to the kitchen table where her computer is sitting. She opens up a web browser, goes to , then quickly types in her name. Her finger hovers over the enter key for a second. She looks over and sees the ring on her left hand and smiles, clicking the button letting out a deep breath. She shuts the computer down and slides back into bed next to Dean, laying her head on his chest and his hand automatically curls around her hip.

A second later, Dean's phone vibrates on the nightstand, on his screen a new message pops up that simply says, _Chloe Sullivan has added her name to 'The List'._

**August 1, 2013**

Chloe rushes through the airport, it's more of a slightly fast walk because she just recently managed to get rid of the crutches. She slides to a stop when she finally spies the sea of camouflage. She leans over for a second catching her breath and then heads into the group of soldiers waiting to board their plane. "Graham." Chloe calls out, spotting the back of his head. "Corporal Graham Fisher?"

He turns around and Chloe sees a few other familiar faces around him turning too. Immediately when they see her a few of them stand to attention and Chloe rolls her eyes. "You know I'm not technically…" None of them make a move. "Oh for God sake, at ease." Chloe tells them but there's a smile on her face. "Can I talk to Corporal Fisher?" She asks and she receives a collections of 'yes ma'am' as the soldiers turn away.

"What are you doing here?" Graham smiles at her.

"I heard you got your medical clearance and that you were shipping back out today. I happened to be at the airport, thought I'd come by and wish you luck." Chloe shrugs.

"You just happened to be at the airport?" Graham asks.

"Actually yes. I'm on my way out too. Spain." Chloe tells him. "I know it's not Afghanistan but…"

"Hey, we go to Afghanistan so that you can go to Spain." Graham points out.

"Right." Chloe nods.

"I got an alert the other day, telling me that you added your name to The List." Graham says.

"Yeah, I did." Chloe says.

"The List." Graham says softly. "Now, why do I have this feeling that you had something to do with that?"

"Me?" Chloe asks feigning surprise. "I can barely check my e-mail, I couldn't possibly create something like The List." She jokes.

"Hmm…your lip twitches when you lie you know." He tells her and she glares at him.

"Look, you probably don't realize it but you helped me out a lot and I just wanted you to know that and," she reaches under her shirt and pulls Jimmy's crucifix out, pulling it over her head before holding it out for him, "I wanted you to have this."

Graham looks from the crucifix to Chloe. "I didn't do anything." He says confused.

"You did, you don't realize it but you did." Chloe says. "This helped me through a lot but I don't need it anymore, but where you're going you just might." Chloe drops it in his hand. "And maybe you'll find someone there who needs it more than you."

"What if you need it again?" Graham asks quietly.

"I don't think I will but if I do, it'll find its way back." Chloe assures him and he slips it in his vest pocket. Chloe turns back to the other men and one of them looks really familiar. "Lance Corporal Higgins, you were in New York before everyone got pulled out huh?"

"Yes ma'am." He nods to the others around him. "We all were."

"You better come back then." She tells him and there's no mistaking it's an order. "When you do, I'm buying you a beer because you guys have got to have some serious stories."

"Yes ma'am." Lance Corporal Higgins nods with a smile on his face.

As Chloe walks, they stand and salute her and she simply rolls her eyes. A few other soldiers come up and watch her go confused. "Who was that?"

"Chloe Sullivan." Lance Corporal Higgins says.

"And who is Chloe Sullivan?" The soldier asks him, needing more information than that.

"If you don't know, you don't know." Graham pats him on the back and walks off.

**September 5, 2013**

Chloe pushes open the door to the Talon apartment, or she tries to, it's not so easy with all the mail piled up on the floor. She gets an extra push from behind her as Malachi forces his way into the apartment, jumping up onto the couch and lying down in his usual spot. "Someone missed home."

"Make that two someone's." Dean says coming in behind her, dragging all their luggage behind him. "I want a shower and then a nap." He drops everything in the middle of the floor and heads for the bathroom just as Chloe's phone rings. "Don't answer it. You factor heavily into my nap plans." He calls out to her and Chloe laughs, digging her phone from the bottom of her bag. "I'm serious, it's probably Lois again wanting to talk about the wedding."

"Hello." Chloe answers, ignoring him and putting it on speaker phone as she searches for something in one of the bags.

"Chloelicious." Bart calls out and Dean glares from around the bathroom door. "We're still on vacation until tomorrow." Dean reminds him.

"He's right, Jo's still in charge." Chloe says smiling when she finds the picture frame and stands up.

"I know, but you told me to keep an eye on the mail, watch out for a specific envelope and tell you the second that envelope got here, well that envelope just got here." Bart tells her. Chloe sets the picture on the mantle and turns around.

"Are you sure?" She asks.

"Positive, you showed me what it would look like eighteen times." Bart says. "It's right here in my hands, you want me to bring it by?"

"No, I'll be right there to pick it up." Chloe hangs up the phone.

"No. Shower, nap." Dean reminds her.

"Later, I want you to come with me. There's something I haven't told you yet." Chloe admits.

"Ok." Dean looks past her to the picture on the mantel of the two of them, arms slung over each other's shoulder covered in tomatoes. "That looks good up there."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The walk into the Watchtower and are immediately bombarded with questions about their trip but Chloe leaves Dean to answer those and heads straight to Bart. He passes her the large envelop and she tears into it, reading the letter rapidly smiling to herself the more she reads. "Good news?" Dean asks and she nods, her smile beaming. "What's this all about?"

"I had a list of names that I had Oracle watch for on The List." Chloe explains. "I never actually thought his name would pop up I just, I don't even know why I told her to watch for it but then one day he added his name to the list."

"Who?" Dean asks her.

"Joshua Moore." Chloe says.

Everyone stops and turns to her. "Look, I know how it sounds and at first I thought maybe it was someone else. There's got to be more than one Joshua Moore on the planet you know but I couldn't get it out of my head so I did a bit of research and I found a Facebook page and it was him." She shakes her head remembering.

"But he wasn't real." Dean says.

"That's what I thought." Chloe laughs. "So I dug deeper, I found his birth certificate and National Insurance number, immunization records, school transcripts, and if they were made up I can't tell. I even found a few home videos. He was born and raised in Devon, England. His dad died when he was five in a car accident, his mom passed away a few years ago from cancer. When he finished school he got a scholarship to go to Med School in the states then lost it a few years later due to lack of funding. He works at a bookstore, here in Metropolis." She says. "He's real. He has a past and a life and he's real."

"Seriously?" Dean whispers.

"You want to meet him?" Chloe asks hopefully.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

They stand outside the bookstore and Chloe takes a deep breath before opening the door. Dean trusts Chloe, especially where research is concerned but this just seemed so impossible that he doesn't believe it until he sees Joshua standing behind a cash register, handing a woman a bag and a receipt. His face lights up when he sees Chloe and Dean laughs in amazement. "Hey." Joshua comes out from behind the counter. "You're back, how was your trip?"

"It was great." Chloe assures him. "Fantastic."

"Did you bring me back something from England?" He asks hopefully.

"No." Chloe says.

"You know how terribly homesick I am."

"I know, be patient." She says cryptically.

"Fine. This must be Dean, I've heard a lot about you." Joshua holds out his hand and this takes Dean out of his trance and he smiles, shaking Joshua's hand. "So, how did the books work out?"

"Prefect as always." Chloe assures him.

"I've got some more in the back I think you'll like, let me go get them." He says, disappearing behind the counter.

"How long have you been coming here?"

"Almost a year now." Chloe says. "I just…I wanted to keep him a secret for a while, I was afraid if I told someone else then he'd…I don't know disappear."

"He's real." Dean says in amazement as his phone beeps with another text.

"Who are you texting?" Chloe asks him confused.

"Sam, he just got into town, wanted to know where we were because he has something important to tell you or show you. I'm not sure, he's not being very clear." Dean slipped his phone back in his pocket as Joshua emerged from the back with a bag of books, passing it over the counter to Chloe.

"You're not going to check them?" Joshua asks as he starts to ring them up.

"I trust you." Chloe shrugs. "Joshua's a genius when it comes to picking out the best books. He won't let me choose my own." Chloe explains to Dean.

"Yes well the first time you came in here, you tried to buy the DaVinci Code" Joshua points out. "Obviously you're not capable of making your own literary decisions."

"That was a while ago, I'd like to think I've grown as a person since then." Chloe jokes.

"So would I." Joshua smiles at her. "But I've yet to see actual proof of that." He deftly ducks the hand that she swats at him and Dean laughs.

"But seriously." Chloe sobers up. "What am I going to do without you?"

"Are you going on another trip?" He asks.

"No, but you are." She hands him a small envelope.

"You did get me something?" Josh reaches out slowly for the envelope, a smile on his face. "I was just kidding, you didn't have to do that."

"I really did." Chloe argues. "You have no idea how much I owe you—I couldn't even begin to explain what you've done for me and even if I did, you'd never believe me so just know that I'm grateful."

"I don't know what that means." Josh says quietly staring at the envelope.

"Go on then, open it." Dean smiles at him and Josh opens the envelope.

"It's a ticket to London." Josh looks up. "You got me a plane ticket to London?"

"I know how much you want to move home but you don't have the money and I mean there was no rush before but what with the fact that that's where your school is now. I mean you don't have to but if you stay here, the commutes gonna be a bitch." Chloe hands him the larger envelope that Bart gave her at the Watchtower and Joshua freezes when he sees the emblem for Kings College in the corner. Very slowly he opens it up and pulled out a crisp white piece of paper. He has to read the first line a few times to fully understand it.

"Dear Mr. Moore, we would like to congratulate you on being selected for admission and are pleased to tell you that you have earned a spot in our prestigiously competitive Medical programme…" Joshua looks up at Chloe. "I don't understand, I didn't even apply."

"I did." Chloe tells him. "For you. I know how much you wanted to go back to Medical school and earn your degree. You were meant to be a Doctor, you and I both know that."

"If I can't afford a plane ticket what makes you think that I could possibly afford even a semester at Kings College?" Josh sputters.

"Would you possibly believe me if I told you that a great Aunt you never knew existed recently died and left you with just enough money to pay for class and room and board?" Chloe asks him.

"Not even a little." Joshua shakes his head staring at Chloe. "Are _you_ paying for this?" he asks suddenly.

"Not me personally, a friend of mine, but look he can afford it, he can afford it ten times over."

"I don't…this doesn't…" Joshua looks up at her speechless. "Why would you do this? You don't even know me."

"I know you." Chloe tells him. "You don't think I do and trust me I know this seems weird but it's not a scam and it's not a trick it's just a gift, because you don't know why but I owe you this."

"You should just take it and say Thank You." Dean offers. "She won't take no for an answer."

"Seriously you were never this disagreeable before. You're not supposed to ask questions, you're just supposed to jump remember."

"I don't know what that means." Josh tells her with a half strangled laugh. "Sometimes you say things like I should know what they mean and I never know what they mean."

"I know." Chloe sighs. "And sometimes I wish you did and other times I'm so very glad that you don't." She takes a deep breath.

"How do I…I could never pay this back." Joshua points out.

"Yes you can, just promise me you'll do great things. You are destined for something so much bigger than this Joshua and you might not think so but I do. You're going to become a doctor and you're going to help so many people and then one day maybe even cure cancer. That's how you pay me back."

"By curing cancer?" Joshua laughs. "So no pressure then."

Chloe places a soft kiss to his forehead and grabs her bag. "Oh and when you get to London, you should take a walk by the fountain in Russell Square. If you happen upon a cute girl named Beth in need of saving, help her, trust me. She'll probably ask you out for coffee, you'll be tempted not to go but go, but you should. I mean you can't stand her up, you're her knight in shining armor." Chloe winks and walks out of the book store.

"I don't know what that means." Josh calls after her, a soft smile on his face.

"You think he could really cure cancer." Dean asks when they're back out on the street.

"He didn't exist three years ago." Chloe points out. "I think if anyone can cure cancer, he can. What did Sam want?" Chloe asks.

"He knew we were coming back today but he went to the Watchtower and we weren't there and he went to the Talon and we weren't there, he wanted to know where we were, said he had a surprise." Dean shrugs and then stops in place when Chloe's hand grips his wrist painfully. He looks up and sees Sam in front of them but he's not alone.

"Cass?" Chloe asks, her voice nothing more than a whisper. He looks different. His ever present suit and trench coat is gone. In its place a pair of well worn jeans, a soft cotton t-shirt and a hoodie that Chloe recognizes as Sam's. He straightens when he sees her and it feels like the sidewalk has gotten ten times longer as she walks to him.

"Chloe." He breathes out when she's finally standing in front of him.

"I've been looking for you." She tells him sadly. "You weren't there when I woke up. You weren't anywhere, you just disappeared."

"I had some things to do." Castiel explains to her. "There were decisions, choices that I had to make and I couldn't see you until I'd made them."

"What kind of decisions?" Chloe asks, fearful of the answer.

"I—" Castiel can't seem to form the words so Sam helps him out.

"He clipped his wings." Sam explains.

"You're human?" Chloe reaches out with her right hand, laying it softly on his chest and she laughs when she feels his heart beat under her palm.

Castiel nods. "I traded my grace."

"For what?" Chloe asks, dreading the answer.

"For you." Castiel explains. "The damage that was done to your body, to your soul, you should not have recovered from it. You would not have recovered from it if it weren't for a very large influx of energy into your body. Celestial energy. I offered up mine."

"You shouldn't have done that." Chloe shakes her head at him.

"I knew the consequence." Castiel insists. "And to spare your life, it was more than worth it."

"But you gave up your grace." Chloe points out. "I can't imagine…you shouldn't have done that for me."

"I didn't." Castiel answers truthfully. "Not entirely. I did this for me. I asked you once, a long time ago, what was the point in saving the world if you never lived in it. Becoming human is not a hardship to be suffered, it is a gift."

She had been wondering why she was brought back, how she was brought back. Joshua made a big deal about free will and respecting the choices we made and Chloe had made her choice and she was ok with it. For a while there she thought that because she'd come back, because he'd brought her back, it diminished the sacrifice she'd made, rendered it meaningless. But he didn't bring her back, Castiel did, Castiel chose to bring her back just like she chose to die, and all he'd done was honor those choices. "Ok, so he brought me back because you chose to trade your grace for me, but why did he bring everyone else back? Why did he make it like nothing had ever happened?"

"He didn't." Castiel looks over at Chloe confused. "You did."

"I did?" Chloe asks and Sam and Dean both turn to her confused. "How could I…"

"The crystal." Castiel explains to her. "You had access to its power, it's likely the entire thing was done on a subconscious level. Before you smashed it, you wanted it to make everything better remember. So the crystal made everything better."

"But he said it couldn't, he said it had to…" Chloe shakes her head not really understanding.

"It was your choice Chloe." Castiel smiles at her, "and he hand to honor that choice."

Chloe smiles then in relief, it was an out. God hadn't wanted that to happen anymore than Chloe had and when she's made that comment, about making everything better and the crystal had done exactly that, God chose to honor that, for her, for all of them. "So what happens now?" she asks Castiel, a strange sort of giddy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Well, now strangely enough I find myself in need of a job." Castiel tells her. "And I hear you're in need of an assistant."

"You want to work for me?" Chloe slips her hands in her pockets and raises her eyebrows.

"Yes ma'am. I feel that I am uniquely qualified for the position." Castiel nods.

"Rule number one; never, ever call me ma'am." Chloe smiles, a distant memory itching at the back of her brain. "What special skills can you bring to the table?"

"Well I am already familiar with your filing system." He points out, the hint of a smile on his lips.

"Anything else? Do you have any supernatural powers that might be useful?" Chloe asks.

"No." Castiel smiles. "None at all, 100% human. But I didn't come here empty handed." He says suddenly producing from behind his back a steaming cup of coffee.

Chloe takes it from him and sniffs the brew suspiciously. "Did you filter the water?"

"No." He shakes his head.

"Roast and grind the beans yourself?" She swirls it around in the cup as he shakes his head no. "Put it through a French press?" She allows herself a small sip and grimaces at the bitter almost burnt taste.

"No. I bought it at the coffee cart around the corner." He admits and Sam coughs. "_Sam_ bought it at the coffee cart in the lobby, I don't exactly have any money right now."

"It'll do." Chloe lowers the cup and nods.

"You have to say it." Dean points out.

"I'm not saying it." Chloe shakes her head.

"I'd like it if you said it." Castiel offers her and she slings an arm over his shoulder.

"Come on, Chloe." Sam nudges her.

"Is this how it's going to be from now on?" Chloe looks between them. "The three of you ganging up on me?"

They all looked at each other like they hadn't even considered that as an option. "Most likely."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**September 3, 2009**

"_Cass right?" Chloe asks._

_"Yes ma'am." He nods and she pauses, looks at Oliver and raises her eyebrows before turning back to him. _

"_Rule number one; never, ever call me ma'am again." Chloe smiles. "Ok?"_

"_Yes ma…yes." Castiel nods. _

_Chloe turns to him. "So what's your power?" _

"_My power?" Castiel frowns._

"_Your ability, your meteor enhancement?" Chloe starts to frown. "Something you can do that no one else can, am I talking to a brick wall here?" _

"_No, he's just not used to talking about it so openly." Oliver jumps in. "He can levitate things." _

"_Yes, I can." Castiel agrees. "I can do that." _

_Chloe smiles. "Well that probably will come in pretty handy." _

_Oliver nods not so subtly at Cass and he jumps, remember something. "I made you some coffee." _

"_Hm." Chloe looks at him skeptically as he retrieves the cup from the counter and slides it across the table for her inspection. Chloe takes the cup slowly, wrapping her fingers around the glass and gripping it tightly. She brings it up to her nose, closes her eyes and takes a long deep breath. "Smells good." Oliver smiles encouragingly at Castiel who looks hopeful. She brings the mug to her lips and takes a tentative sip, swallowing slowly before she sets the mug on the table and opens her eyes, giving nothing away._

"_So?" Oliver asks her._

"_How did you make this?" Chloe asks him._

"_I filtered the water, I roasted the beans then ground them fresh, and then put it through a French press." Castiel explains to her and Chloe turns to Oliver and mouths, unbelievably "French Press". The past few weeks, she'd been so busy she hadn't even bothered to take the used coffee out of the filter, at this point she was probably drinking lightly colored hot water and this guy roasted his own beans. _

_The edges of Chloe's lips curl up and Castiel relaxes as she looks at him like she just won the lottery. She swings an arm over his shoulder and smiles. "Cass, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." _


End file.
